Travellers from China and Malaysia are expected to lead tourist industry growth in the Asia-Pacific region during the second half of 2008, a survey released Wednesday showed.
Outbound trips from Singapore, South Korea and Thailand are also expected to see double-digit growth as travel demand remains robust despite rising inflation and higher fuel prices, credit card firm MasterCard said.
Travellers in the Asia-Pacific are expected to make 88.3 million trips -- for business and leisure -- in the second half of 2008, with Malaysia and China accounting for more than half of the departures, it said.
Malaysian travellers are seen making 25.2 million departures in the July-December period, the highest number of the 12 regional markets surveyed by MasterCard.
In second place was China with an estimated 24.4 million trips, the survey showed.
"In spite of global economic uncertainty and rising inflation, outbound travel in (the) Asia-Pacific is poised for steady growth over the rest of 2008," said Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, MasterCard's regional economic advisor.
"This is largely due to the fact that income and employment have not been seriously affected by the global credit crunch, and higher inflation has yet to translate into higher prices in plane tickets and costs of accommodation.
"Should these conditions change, however, the outlook will be very different."
Singapore is forecast to register the biggest year-on-year jump with an expected four million outbound trips during the period, up 23 percent over 2007.
In Southeast Asia, travellers from Indonesia are seen making 2.7 million trips, the Philippines 1.0 million and Thailand 2.1 million.
Australians are expected to make 3.1 million trips abroad, Hong Kong 3.4 million, Japan 9.2 million, Taiwan 4.6 million, South Korea 7.6 million and New Zealand 1.0 million, the poll showed.
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