Tourism revenues in the Asia Pacific region will increase to 4.6 trillion U.S. dollars with visitor arrivals reaching close to 500 million by the end of 2010, the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) said on Wednesday.

In its newly-published Asia Pacific Tourism Forecasts 2008-2010, officially launched here on Wednesday in partnership with the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), the PATA said that despite concerns over a U.S. recession, it predicts a bright future for the region, with China and South Korea set to generate strong outbound growth to Asia Pacific destinations.

Despite regional stock market volatility and uncertainty over local impacts of a possible U.S. recession, the PATA predicts robust average annual growth rates of between 7 percent and 8 percent in the region.

John Koldowski, director of PATA's strategic intelligence center, said that as much as two-thirds of all international arrivals into Asia Pacific are generated from within the region.

He said that Asian markets will inevitably be impacted by a slowdown in the U.S. economy triggered by the credit crunch. However, the medium-term outlook for most Asian economies is very strong with growth rates well above world averages.

As for Singapore's tourism sector, the PATA said in its annual forecasts that with 10.3 million visitor arrivals recorded for 2007 and 12 million forecast for 2010, the city state is well on track to achieve its goal of 17 million arrivals in 2015.

(Xinhua News Agency March 20, 2008)