PATA notes accuracy of Q1 tourist arrival forecasts across region

"These numbers highlight the accuracy of these forecasts, which reliably predict turning points in the visitor projections for 38 Asia-Pacific destinations as they accelerate or, as in a few cases, contract their foreign inbound figures during 2015," said Mario Hardy, chief executive of the Pacific Asia Travel Association.

"The availability of these forecasts on a quarterly basis provides destinations with a timely mechanism for adjusting their promotional strategies to take advantage of surges in outbound travel from particular origin markets and to re-deploy resources to their best advantage."

Across the region, the Americas (two destinations) are performing at 4.9 per cent above the first-quarter forecasts, while South Asia (two destinations) is performing at 3.2 per cent above them. Northeast Asia (six destinations) is just 2.2 per cent behind the first-quarter forecast, while six destinations in Southeast Asia are collectively 4.2 per cent behind the forecast volumes.

The Pacific (nine destinations) is only 0.7 per cent under forecast.

Year on year, the first-quarter results for this cluster of 25 destinations is 5.1 per cent better than the first quarter of 2014, with an additional 4.9 million arrivals added to the collective total for the period. The strongest performers in terms of period-to-period growth are Palau (up 46.6 per cent), Japan (up 43.7 per cent), Thailand (up 23.5 per cent), Sri Lanka (up 13.6 per cent) and South Korea (up 13.4 per cent).

China has reported a first-quarter gain for the first time since 2012 and, with growth of 4 per cent, has added 1.195 million additional arrivals to the count over that of the first quarter of 2014. While it is a significant increase, it ranks third behind Japan (up 1.257 million) and Thailand (up 1.501 million).