While the month-on-month growth shows a slight decline in May, tourism recovery among major destinations in Asia Pacific ranged between 36% to 75%, led by Singapore (again).

Whereas Southeast Asia showed strong recovery with the gradual return of Chinese travellers.

Indonesia

Indonesia welcomed more than 3.1 million foreign visitors in the first four months of 2023, driven by visitors from Malaysia (16%), Singapore (12%) and Australia (12%).

Chinese travellers are gradually returning to Indonesia and rank as the fifth largest feeder market in March and April. The Indonesian Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy has adjusted the strategy in adaption to post-pandemic travel behaviour, including improving tourism quality, adapting technology and promoting sustainability. Visitors to Indonesia are mostly younger in age and traveling in small groups, compared to visitors before the pandemic.

Bali is the most popular destination in the nation, receiving over 1.4 million foreign visitors from January to April in 2023. Denpasar International Airport is also the most used airport by foreign visitors, followed by Soekarno–Hatta International Airport in Jakarta and Kualanamu in Medan.

Tourism in Bali is likely to take some time to recover fully, as international flights are still below 50% of pre-pandemic levels. Most importantly, Indonesia halted visa-free entry for all countries except ASEAN countries in June, aiming to alleviate public order disruptions and the potential transmission of diseases brought by tourism.

Singapore

With strong demands from both leisure and business sectors, Singapore recorded over 5.1 million international visitors from January to May this year.

Monthly visitors to Singapore exceeded 1 million for three consecutive months, and the latest figure in May shows a 75% recovery from 2019, leading the recovery in Asia Pacific. Indonesia topped the international arrivals to Singapore at 900,000 visitors in just five months, followed by Malaysia and Australia. Singapore also captured a great number of Chinese visitors at the same time, which accounted for 6% of the total arrivals.

On top of diversifying the tourism experience, Singapore also efforts to establish its image of MICE hub in the region, including attracting international concerts to the nation.

Singapore’s National Stadium and Sports Hub, which offers a maximum capacity of 55,000, has secured several large events, including hosting the concerts of British band Coldplay and American singer Taylor Swift in 2024.

Taiwan

In the first four months of 2023, Taiwan welcomed over 1.6 million visitors, which were mainly from Korea, Japan and the U.S. As the recovery pace was beyond expectations, the authorities show confidence to hit the annual target of 6 million foreign visitors in 2023.

Despite the little return of visitors from mainland China, short-haul travellers become the new target market for ongoing marketing campaigns, particularly Southeast Asia and North Asia. Aside from inbound travellers, Taiwan also plans to attract transit passengers with visa-free entry and complimentary city tours.

Taiwanese outbound travel gradually resumed in July 2022 and reached over 2.9 million between January and April 2023. Japan (38%) was the most popular destination for Taiwanese travellers, followed by mainland China (9.5%), Korea (8.4%), Thailand (7.2%), and Vietnam (7.1%).

However, it takes time for flights to resume due to the shortage of staff at secondary airports in Taiwan and overseas destinations.

AP Hospitality Advisors serves owners, investors, developers, operators and lenders of hospitality assets across Asia-Pacific. The team blends expertise in operations, real estate and finance to support any critical step in the asset life-cycle.

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