Europe versus Asia - Future of Tourism Trade

Abstract

The shift share analysis conducted here is an attempt to forecast the balance of trade between Europe and Asia in the medium term in
order to determine the directions of trade shift between these two growth regions. The study examines tourist arrivals from 1990 to 2002
inclusive into a selection of European and Asian countries and forecasts arrivals into each region from each other region for 2005 to 2007. The
forecasting is a combination of existing published forecasts, for selected countries, and individual time series analysis using a structural
modelling technique. The analysis showed that Asia had a competitive advantage over Europe in travel from Africa, Americas and Oceania
from1990 to 2002. Compared to the period of 1990 to 1995, the absolute growth of tourist arrivals from all regions to Asia over the period of
1995 to 2000 was two and a half times larger. The allocation effect for Oceania was positive during 2000-2002 indicating that Asia was
increasingly specialized in attracting tourists from Oceania and Asia was increasingly gaining ground in attracting more tourists from the
Middle East from 1995 onwards.