Following strong annual percentage increases in international visitor arrivals (IVAs) to Asia in 2022, predictions now are for a return to pre-COVID levels this year, with growth momentum slowly moderating in strength to 2025 as pent-up demand gradually eases.

The latest scenario forecasts from the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) for international arrivals into 39 Asia-Pacific destinations covered in the association’s just-released the Executive Summary report, predict that under the most likely “mild” scenario, the return to pre-COVID levels of IVAs will occur in 2023.

A second “medium” scenario projects the peak recover to occur in 2024. Meanwhile, a more “severe” scenario suggests that even by the end of 2025, arrival numbers would lag behind the 2019 benchmark by around 12%.

In absolute terms, the number of international arrivals estimates for 2023 range from 713 million under the mild scenario to 512 million under the medium scenario and 383 million under the severe scenario

While the forecasts for annual increases in international visitor numbers into and across Asia-Pacific are strong for each year from 2023 to 2025 under all three scenarios, there are still significant variations under each of those scenarios for individual destination regions and within those, the destinations themselves.

The annual growth rate for IVAs into and across Asia, for example, is predicted to be of the order of 254% in 2023 under the mild scenario, 171% under the medium scenario and 127% under the severe scenario. Such performances are supported by the recent news that China is slowly returning to international travel for both inbound and outbound.

The other destination regions of Asia-Pacific are not forecast to grow as strongly as Asia, but still have significant growth rates and absolute volume increases, which, importantly, are predicted to remain positive from year to year between 2023 and 2025.

“Overall, while the trends in these latest forecasts are extremely positive, there are still significant challenges ahead, not the least of which will be managing the impacts of the various variants of the SARS-COV-2 virus and whatever else might appear,” says PATA Chair Peter Semone. “Add to that the continually looming possibility of a global recession, ongoing geo-political conflicts, a persistent trade-war and changing landscapes in the face of climate change, and it seems advisable to at least consider the possibility of more years of uncertainty and to prepare accordingly.”

Semone further cautions: “We were warned with SARS in 2003/2004 but did not fully heed it and consequently paid an enormous humanitarian and economic price with COVID-19. Lessons must be learned and remembered.”

The PATA chair also noted that another critical issue for the travel and tourism sector is staffing, adding, “We need appropriately trained and motivated personnel and that in turn necessitates education, realistic salaries and benefits, and a transparent promotion pathway for those staff. The sector lost millions of workers during the COVID-19 years and luring them back will be a difficult task unless conditions improve.”