Asia's Burgeoning Travel Business

During China’s holiday week at the outset of October, press coverage centered on how visitor sites were overrun, with tourist traffic up a reported 20% in a year. This in turn was cited as evidence that the Chinese consumer was finally taking hold in an economy too driven by state and corporate investment.

As a business, travel and tourism is now a serious industry in most nations, a $293 billion force in Asia-Pacific. That’s according to the UN’s World Tourism Organization, which also finds that the circulation area of this magazine more than doubled its share of global inbound and outbound traffic between 1985 and 2010, to better than 21%.

 

The onset of regular vacations in more jurisdictions has fueled demand. Affordable airline travel, as pioneered in this region by Tony Fernandes’ Air Asia, has allowed for covering greater distances. (And air terminals around the world, such as Los Angeles International, are ramping up to handle all the flights coming to and from Asia.) Comparison shopping for travel isn’t limited to flights. A multitude of online travel booking and review sites makes possible more knowledgeable choices (as well as many new Web enterprises, including China’s tuniu.com and India’s redBus).

Thailand early on became a tourist favorite, and today Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok is the most shared photo location on the Instagram social Internet site. (The Siam Paragon mall in town is number two.) Holiday Inn Express is making a big move to accommodate as many of those tourists as possible. Bangkok in recent years suffered when protesters closed that airport but managed to host visitors in the face of street riots two years later.

Globally, France has long been a tourist magnet, not just for Paris and the glamorous southern coast but also as an early draw in wine tourism, now more commonplace. Casinos, of course, have long outgrown Monaco and, lately dressed up as integrated resorts, are popping up all over Asia.Macau is the biggest gambling mecca in the world.

Japanese were early participants in the age of mass tourism, though their own country has lagged in visitations in recent years (maybe a weaker yen will change that). China is now the biggest story, as its citizens look for experiences both abroad and inmore exotic locations at home.

Hospitality employment, though rarely a source of high income, is often embraced as a labor sector that cannot be outsourced. This isn’t quite true–staff can be imported, including into management or “high-touch” positions. The Swiss carved out an early specialty. In the future this may benefit more Southeast Asians particularly, as their renowned graciousness should be relocatable. And with all this travel, there is the complex business of visa processing and other bureaucratic paperwork, which provides business opportunities for companies such as VFS Global.

Our look at entities large and small gives a flavor of what is going into the burgeoning business of tourism in the region.