Pacific Asia Travel Association said international arrivals across the Asia Pacific region grew in 2022 and have strengthened significantly during 2023. PATA said 2022 saw 44 destinations across the APAC region end with a collective annual gain of almost 124.2 million foreign arrivals, to return a collective inbound count of nearly 265.5 million. That was the strongest since 2019, with the Pacific region having the strongest growth rate in 2022 year over year, whereas Asia received the largest number of arrivals and greatest annual increase in absolute numbers from 2021. We love those who trumpet these numbers and then quietly report that this was only 27% of 2019 levels. In that respect, the Americas led everyone in 2022, getting to 69% of 2019. 2023 is a different story as the IVA growth has continued with the addition of more than 93.3 million foreign arrivals in APAC, boosting the recovery rate for early 2023 to more than 68% of the early 2019 IVA levels. In early 2023, Asia had the strongest performance of the three destination regions. Asia is only at a 54% recovery rate as a source region, but that number will improve as China does. In 2019, it accounted for almost 30% of the IVAs from Asia. In early 2023, despite the recovery, it was only at 34% of the early 2019 level of arrivals.
The Macao Government Tourism Office said Macau received more t