Asia's tourism industry buoyed by online bookings

Asia's continued growth as a tourism destination and as a tourism source were among the main talking points at the region's largest travel industry gathering which wrapped up Tuesday in Beijing.

The Pacific Asia Travel Association's four-day 60th Anniversary and Conference attracted more than 1,000 industry leaders for a series of seminars and celebrations, and the news they heard was good.

PATA released a survey into the global online travel market - seen by the industry as the way of the future for bookings - and it found that while Asian consumers might have constituted only 26 percent of the market last year (compared to 36 percent from Europe and 27 percent from North America), more than 50 percent of that number were aged under 34.

With the Asia Pacific region accounting now for 41 percent of total global internet users, PATA claimed this indicated that the Asian consumers would soon dominate the online market. 

Source: Relaxnews/The Independent