Inbound travel to India on rise
India received 24.4 per cent share of inbound travellers to the Asia Pacific region in Q1. It is not bad considering the air ticketing data from ForwardKeys, which shows that international arrivals in the region in the quarter was down by 86 per cent.
The success behind India’s reactivation is the fact that India had announced in advance its reopening plan for this year
India continues to have the largest share of inbound travellers to the Asia Pacific (APAC) region at 24.4 per cent of total arrivals in Q1 as of 11 March. It is not bad considering the air ticketing data from ForwardKeys, which shows that international arrivals in APAC in Q1 was down by 86 per cent.
However, in terms of recovery India as a destination is performing at -59 per cent versus 2019. The best performing region in APAC for on-the-book arrivals is Pakistan with a 0.2 per cent increase versus the same period in 2019. The Maldives and Bangladesh are also showing strong signs of resilience. The APAC region was the most adversely impacted in terms of travel and tourism, largely due to having one of the toughest travel restrictions in the world. However, one by one, nations in Asia are not only announcing reopening but scraping challenging travel barriers such as quarantines and the number of PCR tests. Tickets to APAC on the rise
Tickets for travel to key APAC destinations are on the rise and India is leading the way forward. India has recovered 80 per cent of 2019 level in the week of 5 March 2022. Next is the Pacific Island of Fiji, recovering 61 per cent of prepandemic levels, followed by the
Philippines: 48 per cent recovery; Singapore: 43 per cent recovery and Australia 38 per cent recovery. “The success behind India’s reactivation is the fact that India had announced in advance its reopening plan for this year, generating awareness and interest. While Fiji is a leisure island destination and I think that is its main advantage during this recovery phase as people may feel safer to travel to less crowded (than cities) places with a variety of outdoor activities,” said Nan Dai, Market Analyst at ForwardKeys. Australia’s role
When observing the most recovering source markets to key destinations in the Asia-Pacific region, this is where the ForwardKeys analysts noted the importance of Australian outbound travellers. Take the examples of India and Fiji. Travel from Australia to India has been improving, with arrivals from this origin market at +16 per cent versus 2019 during same period.
The pickup in tickets from Australia started to jump at the beginning of February. “India removed the requirement for quarantine and facilitated travel by adding more countries to its “Category A” country list (Australia included); allowing for entry with proof of vaccination,” added Dai. Travellers’ behaviour
Dai favoured real-time trends and having useful data to give more hope to destinations in the region. “Many APAC government bodies and destinations may feel like travel is unlikely to take place soon to their destination, thus continue their protective travel rules and/or closed borders. However, as other destinations and travel tactics have shown from Mexico, Greece to the UK, restarting travel safely and healthily is possible if led by data and clear travel rules that don’t get changed frequently,” Dai said. “For example, in Singapore, the leisure market is showing more resilience than in 2019 and there have been growths in issued tickets from Thailand (12%) and Denmark (9%) to Singapore – these are new opportunities worth exploiting via new flight frequencies for the tourism boards,” she added.