The most popular destinations for US visitors in the region are the Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia
With most countries in the South East Asian region opening their destinations to foreign visitors only recently and that too tentatively, the latest data from ForwardKeys, a data aggregation and analysis firm, reveals that while South East Asia has been lagging far behind the rest of the world in its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, visitors from the United States are coming back in substantially greater numbers than from other origin markets.
In the first five months of the year (January 1– May 31), travel to the region reached just 18 pc of pre-pandemic levels, whereas travel to Europe reached 55 pc, to the Americas 66 pc and to the Middle East & Africa 64 pc.
Though situation improves in terms of forecasts for the summer, the gap between South East Asia and other parts of the world remains rather wide when looking ahead to the summer months (June 1– August 31), flight bookings for South East Asia are at just 43 pc of pre-pandemic levels, whereas bookings for Europe are at 70 pc, for the Americas are at 78 pc and for the Middle East & Africa are at 85 pc.
Analysis of long-haul flight bookings this summer reveals that travel from the US is set to reach 75 pc of where it was in 2019, before the Covid-19 outbreak. The next healthiest source market is Australia, where bookings are currently at 60 pc of 2019 levels. It is followed by the UK at 47 pc, Germany at 58 pc, and France at 57 pc.
The most popular destinations for US visitors in the region are the Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia. Helpfully, as the US tourists are known for being high spending, average trip durations appear to be significantly longer than they were before the pandemic. This visitor profile is also more affluent, with 17 pc flying in the front of the plane, compared to 9 pc in the equivalent months in 2019.
(Source: ForwardKeys)
The destinations which are recovering most strongly are the Philippines and Singapore. Summer flight bookings for the Philippines are currently at 70 pc of pre-pandemic levels, for Singapore, 58 pc, for Thailand 35 pc, for Indonesia 41 pc and for Vietnam 32 pc. Travel to the Philippines is dominated by people returning to visit friends and relatives, whereas travel to other destinations is more for work and leisure.
Throughout the pandemic, airlines flying to South East Asia have provided more than enough seat capacity to accommodate passenger demand. However, in May 2022, the acceleration in demand started to outstrip capacity, which has been creating an upward pressure on air fares.
“Travel during the pandemic has been a function of pent-up demand pushing in one direction and pandemic protection rules pushing back in the opposite direction. The recovery of air travel in Southeast Asia is lagging because travel restrictions there have been tougher. China, which used to be South East Asia´s largest source market, is still effectively closed; Japan, another major market for travel, is reopening very cautiously and seat capacity, which is constrained, is leading to higher air fares, which in turn dampens demand,” says Olivier Ponti, VP Insights, ForwardKeys.
