Asia’s tourism arrivals forecast to return to pre-Covid levels in 2025: report
Global market intelligence provider BMI expects the figures to rise by 4.7% from 2019

Published Mon, Dec 16, 2024 · 10:58 AM

Tourism arrivals for Asia are expected to recover to their pre-pandemic levels in 2025 and rise by 4.7 per cent from 2019, said a report by global market intelligence provider BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions.

However, Asia, along with the Central and Eastern Europe region, trails other regions, with Western Europe and Latin America’s forecast increase in arrivals between 2019 and 2025 higher at 16.3 per cent and 13.9 per cent, respectively.

The report noted that this is considering how Asia as a whole took longer to reopen and remove Covid-19-related restrictions compared with other regions.
Mainland China, in particular, which attracts a large volume of inbound tourists and is a key source market for multiple Asian destinations, started to reopen only in 2023.

Tourism arrivals forecast for 2025 for the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) is the highest, at 34.4 per cent above pre-Covid-19 levels.

Its arrivals growth remained robust despite the conflicts in Israel, Lebanon and Iran, due to a swift return of regional tourism and tourists from Europe, following a rapid reopening and timely lifting of pandemic-related restrictions. The region also benefited from Qatar hosting the Fifa World Cup in 2022 and Saudi Arabia’s tourism strategy, which diversified its tourism mix and boosted arrivals.
The Mena region began expanding on its pre-pandemic arrivals from 2023, marking the earliest recovery of any region.

On a global scale, the total number of arrivals are projected to expand by 12.4 per cent in 2025 from 2019, and reach 1.6 billion.

This is a significant increase from the 3.9 per cent growth estimate for 2024 from 2019 levels, in the light of how the tourism arrivals of more markets are now moving beyond their recovery phase into growth.
That said, total global arrivals growth is forecast to expand by 8.2 per cent year on year in 2025. This is a weaker growth figure than 2024’s estimated expansion of 16.1 per cent, as the tourism sector moves beyond recovery and into a period of steady growth.