Germany is number two, with just a three percent share of all arrivals in the Pacific Asia region, followed by France, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland. All performed poorly, with growth rates for all but Switzerland of two percent or less. Despite the diversity of tourism flows within and into the PATA region, the figures mentioned above show that just 10 countries generate over 70 percent of all arrival in the region. The prospects for the PATA region in 1998 essentially rest on the performance of these 10 key markets which are, in order of importance, Japan, the U.S., Chinese Taipei, China, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, the U.K., Australia and Indonesia. Two of the world's biggest and most important travel origin markets illustrate the point.
Japan currently has an economy which is only slowly emerging from recession.
Income growth for 1998 is forecast to be only 2.4 percent and private consumption will expand by just two percent that year. Nevertheless, the key features of the Japanese outbound travel market are the strength of the yen and the fact that almost 17 million Japanese travel abroad each year. International travel has rapidly become a standard activity. In 1998, Japanese outbound travel can be expected to continue to grow despite the country's modest economic prospects, not least because the yen is forecast to continue its appreciation against the U.S. dollar by almost 10 percent. The other very similar case is that of Germany.