Impact of COVID-19 on Tourism Sector of Asia & Pacific Countries Evidence from 20 Asia-Pacific Countries

Abstract

The present study examines the impacts of COVID-19 on tourism industry in selected countries of Asia & Pacific region, highlighting the effects on international tourist arrivals and tourist receipts, air reservation, hotel bookings and occupancy rates. Mainly, 20 Asian & Pacific countries (Australia, Cambodia, China, Fiji, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Macao, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam) were selected based on availability of data. The study mainly based on the secondary data collected from World Tourism Organization and World Travel and Tourism Council and employed a descriptive analysis to accomplish the objectives of the study. As the results indicates, international tourist arrivals at global level has decreased by 68.6% on average by 2020 compared to 2019. Moreover, international tourist arrivals to Europe, America and Middle East have shown a negligible increase during the first two months of 2020 and however, region-wise international tourist arrivals have sharply declined after February, 2020. In fact, Asia and the Pacific region which was first affected by the COVID-19 has reported the highest drop in tourist arrivals, which was -9% in January, 2020 and dropped further down to -98% by October, 2020.Massive drop in international tourist arrivals caused declining global earnings from tourism sector by USD 730 billion by August 2020 and this reduction is eight times higher than the income loss of 2009 during the global economic and financial crisis. The reduction of tourism receipts is more considerable in the second quarter compared to the first quarter in most of the countries and countries such as Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Malaysia have experienced 100% reduction in tourism receipts in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the period in 2019. Apart from that, Asia and the Pacific region has reported the highest drop (-96%) in flight reservation by November 2020 compared to the previous year. Apart from that, the occupancy rate in 2020 has declined from 55% in January to 27% by March and has started increasing gradually after March. More specifically, the occupancy rate has increased from 29% in April, 2020 to 58% by October, 2020. Similarly, drop in hotel bookings has reached a bottom during April and May of 2020 and drop was more substantial in the regions such as Africa, Europe, Middle East and Asia and the Pacific. Under this scenario, it is apparent that tourism sector of all Asia & Pacific countries have been severely affected by COVID-19 and therefore alternative revenue sources should be explored till the tourism sector re-emerged.