Before the pandemic, the Asia-Pacific tourism sector was thriving, attracting millions of visitors every year and experiencing a dramatic increase in international tourist arrivals in the decade leading up to the pandemic. In that time, the Asia-Pacific region transformed into a major travel hub for all types of tourists, and the region gained a reputation as an on-trend destination for its attractions and natural landscapes.
According to Statista (2023), that demand is returning now that pandemic restrictions have been lifted. Some countries in the region were among the last to remove COVID travel restrictions, and now, the volume of inbound travellers to the Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow throughout 2023 and 2024, nearly doubling 2022 traffic.
Trip.com has analyzed its booking data to reveal trends and the hottest destinations. They include Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong.
Japan has consistently been ranked among the top five destinations globally in terms of bookings and search volumes since entry restrictions were eased in Q4 2022. According to Trip.com data, global hotel bookings for arrivals between 15MAR and 30JUN, 2023 increased by 237 per cent year-on-year. Global flight bookings also increased by 317 per cent (2022-2023) for travellers during the same period. The top three cities visited in Japan were Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto.
South Korea has set the goal of attracting 10 million foreign visitors in 2023. The number of foreign tourists reached a record 17.5 million in 2019. Trip.com data reveals that global hotel bookings for arrivals between 15MAR to 30JUN, 2023 increased by 51 per cent over 2022.
Following China's decision to reopen borders in DEC 2022, Hong Kong was one of the cities which led the surge as a top destination in the region. Trip.com data shows global hotel bookings for arrivals in the second quarter of 2023 increased by 13 per cent from 2022 with mainland China, Singapore, the UK, America and Canada leading the flight bookings.
