Projecting international tourist arrivals in East Asia and the Pacific to the year 2005

This article discusses and analyzes 22 years of international tourist arrivals in 12 tourist destinations in East Asia and the Pacific, and applies a statistical analysis system (SAS) forecast autoregressive time series trend model to project international tourist flows in that region up to 2005. The projection showed that tourist arrivals to this region's 12 major destinations will increase from 41 million in 1992 to 155 million in 2005, with an overall growth rate of 278% and an average annual growth rate of 10.4%. The tremendous growth of international tourism in the region has been very much associated with intraregional travel in the past. In the projected regional market share, Asia will still maintain its dominant position, increasing from 61% of total international tourist arrivals in 1992 to 65% in 2005, followed by Europe, America, and Oceania. In 2005, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, China, and South Korea will be the top five tourist destinations in the region.