Globetrotter

India's role in Asia-Pacific tourism

By Imtiaz Muqbil

Imtiaz Muqbil

The importance of India as a major saving grace in the Asia-Pacific travel and tourism industry is becoming more than apparent in the first sets of comparative visitor arrival statistics just released by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).

Two of the most noteworthy statistics are the full-year figures for Maldives and Sri Lanka, both South Asian island nations very badly affected by the December 2004 tsunami. The figures show that India edged out UK as Sri Lanka's top visitor source market in 2005, with Indian arrivals rising 7.8 per cent from 105,151 in 2004 to 113,323 in 2005, while UK arrivals fell 13.1 per cent from 106,645 to 92,629 in the same period.

Indian arrivals to Maldives totalled 10,260 in 2005, a marginal decline of 6.7 per cent over 10,999 in 2004. However, the slump in arrivals from other source-markets was so precipitous that it boosted the market share of Indian visitors, from 18 to 20 per cent. Although the full tourism impact of the tsunami was apparent in its immediate aftermath, the full-year figures are allowing a better analysis of both the initial slump as well as the recovery campaigns mounted thereafter.

Statistics for Maldives and Sri Lanka are the first to be compiled because they are single-entry point destinations as against others like Thailand, Indonesia and India itself which have many entry points and the stats take time to be compiled and analysed.

According to the first set of full-year 2005 statistics compiled by PATA, total arrivals to the Maldives slumped a massive 35 per cent from 616,716 in 2004 to 395,320 in 2005 in the aftermath of the tsunami, while arrivals to Sri Lanka fell 3 per cent from 566,202 to 549,308 in the same period. Maldives was worst hit because its economy is almost totally dependent on tourism which in turn is dependent 77 per cent on visitors from Europe.

The impact on Sri Lanka was less because its visa waiver policy for neighbouring India allowed it to mount rapid-fire recovery campaigns, which produced significant results in the first quarter of 2005. John Koldowski, managing director of the Strategic Intelligence Centre, Pacific Asia Travel Association, noted that the figures clearly pointed to the need for destinations to diversify their market sources as well as to seek ways to facilitate visitors from India.

Although arrivals to both countries had recovered strongly towards the latter part of 2005, it was not enough to offset the sharp drops in the first half.

While Europe remains a significant source of visitor arrivals for the Asia-Pacific region, a number of countries are reviewing their marketing profile there because of the slumps caused by natural disasters like the tsunami, the issuance of the controversial travel advisories as well as the growth prospects emerging from India and China.

A more in-depth analysis of the arrival figures for Maldives and Sri Lanka shows the following (although it needs to be kept in mind that a lot of the 'visitor arrivals' were post-tsunami relief and recovery teams and executives of companies visiting to survey their damaged properties):

MALDIVES: Although visitors from all the European countries fell dramatically in 2005, Maldives had made a strong recovery as the year progressed. Thanks to rapid recovery campaigns, arrivals from the UK rose gradually from 4,470 in January 2005 to 8,080 in December 2005. Other markets like Italy also recovered from 3,039 to 10,201 and France, from 870 to 4,010 over the same period.

But other source markets are also showing promise, e.g., China was up from 146 in January 2005 to 1,370 in December 2005. Indian arrivals totalled 10,260 in 2005, a marginal decline of 6.7 per cent over 10,999 in 2004. Maldives has long been conscious of its over-dependence on Europe but is hampered from doing much about it due to the shortages of direct flights from other destinations.

According to the Maldives tourist office in India, a conscious effort is now being made to woo more Indians, similar to the efforts being mounted by Mauritius. A target of 12,000 has been set for 2006.

The only direct air link is an Indian (formerly Indian Airlines) service from the south Indian port city of Trivandrum to Male, capital of the Maldives, but talks have been initiated with private carriers like Jet Airways to open direct flights from key metropolitan cities like Mumbai and Delhi.

SRI LANKA: India has edged out the UK as Sri Lanka's top visitor source market. The Indian surge was because Sri Lankan tourism authorities mounted a vigorous bounce-back campaign in the first quarter of 2005 to take advantage of the visa-free policy. Sri Lanka gets half of its arrivals from Europe, much less than Maldives. Total arrivals from Germany fell 20.4 per cent to 46,350 and arrivals from France were down 11.1 per cent to 26,653. As a result, the market share of European visitors to Sri Lanka fell from 50 per cent in 2004 to 41 per cent in 2005, while India's share rose from 18 to 20 per cent.

Arrivals from Thailand to Sri Lanka rose 7.7 per cent from 5,035 in 2004 to 5,424 in 2005. Both Singapore and Malaysia generate more than twice as many visitors for Sri Lanka than Thailand, although that is in part attributable to the ethnic communities in both countries.

The author is executive editor, Travel Impact Newswire based in Bangkok