The projected inbound market trends of 12 tourist destinations in South-East Asia and the Pacific, 1997-2001

The purpose of this paper was to project international tourist arrivals in 12 major tourist destinations in South-East Asia and the Pacific to the year 2001. The SAS forecast autoregressive time series trend model was applied and 25 years (1970-94) of historical data was used to project international tourist flows in these destinations. The five years' projection (1997-2001) showed that tourist arrivals in the 12 destinations will increase from 69.9 million in 1997 to 104.6 million in the year 2001, with an overall growth rate of 49.6 per cent and an average annual growth rate of 10.6 per cent. The tremendons growth of international tourism in the region has been very much associated with intra-regional travel in the past. In the projected regional market share, intra-regional travel will still maintain its dominant position, increasing from 61 per cent of market share in 1997 to 63.5 per cent in 2001, followed by Europe, America, and Oceania. By the year 2001, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, China, and South Korea will be the top five tourist destinations in the region.