Wednesday, April 6, 2022
In many Southeast Asian countries, tourism is an important economic driver. The sector in 2019 contributed around US$393 billion to the GDP of the country. However, for the millions, the pandemic and border restrictions proved dreadful, particularly for those whose livelihood is tourism-based. On the other hand, imposed intervals however have brought the ill-effects of overtourism into decline, after experiencing massive growth in the last decade.
For the region, tourism has long been a major draw, the 2010s saw extraordinary rise in visitors numbers worldwide.
According to ASEAN data, in 2011, almost 81.2 million people visited Southeast Asia, a figure that in 2019 doubled to over 143 million. Visitors from the United States in that same period roughly doubled to 4.8 million, as visitors on 2011 from the United Kingdom and France grew by around half to 3.1 million and 2 million respectively. From South Korea, largest increases had come from, whose visitors nearly tripled to 10.5 million, and particularly China, whose 32.3 million visitors in 2011 were over four times the 7.3 million. In 2019, Thailand welcomed 11 million Chinese tourists, six times more than in 2011. Also, China was the main country of origin for visitors to Cambodia and Bali in Indonesia.
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
