UNWTO/GTERC Annual Report on Asia Tourism Trends – 2016 Edition

The “UNWTO/GTERC Asia Tourism Trends 2016 Edition”, the third annual report in the series, highlights the rapidly growing tourism sector of Asia and the Pacific. Tourism is a reflection of the socio-economic conditions of the region whose GDP has been growing much faster than the world’s average. This has led to the emergence of a robust middle-class who possess the disposable income to travel. Allied to the ICT revolution, a new group of travelers, the “consumer class” and the technology savvy “millennials” with their own characteristics has emerged. These form the essence of the second chapter of the study. Tourism calls for the reciprocal investment in infrastructure and human capital development to sustain this growth that is elaborated in the third section. The final chapter gives a summary of the agenda of activities of the Regional Programme for Asia and the Pacific for the year.