The MasterIndex of Travel report is predicting a slowdown in
growth of outbound travel across the Asia/Pacific in the first half of 2007.
While markets across the Asia/Pacific continue to see growth
in outbound travel, with China (12%), Malaysia (7.8%) and Thailand (7.2%)
experiencing the highest year-on-year growth, the rate of growth across most
markets in the Asia/Pacific have dropped compared to the previous survey.
"This near term outlook of outbound travel appears to be
consistent with our long term view of a massive expansion of overseas travel in
Asia in the coming decade. Some marginal slowdown in growth in some markets is
to be expected.
The important thing to note is that growth momentum remains
intact," observed Dr. Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, economic advisor to MasterCard
Worldwide in Asia/Pacific.
Markets seeing the greatest slowdown in the rate of growth in
outbound travel are Hong Kong, Korea and Malaysia. Hong Kong’s rate of growth of
outbound travel is expected to slow down significantly from a robust 15% (seen
in the previous survey for the second half of 2006) to a less optimistic 4.5%.
For Korea and Malaysia, a slowdown in their year-on-year growth from a
previously recorded 9.0% and 12.5% respectively, to 3.6% and 7.8% respectively,
is predicted for the first half of 2007.
Mirroring the earlier forecast in the second half of 2006,
Malaysia is expected to continue to take the lead in the number of outbound
travelers (including visitors to Singapore). Over 21.5 million outbound visits
are expected to be made by Malaysians for work and leisure from January to June
2007. Key markets that stand to benefit from the continued increase in
Malaysians traveling overseas include Singapore, China, Indonesia and Hong Kong.
The following chart shows the MasterIndex of Travel forecast for outbound
travel for the first half of 2007.
