Asia continues to provide solid growth for Australia's incentive market

The Australian Tourist Commission has said it regards Asia as a region that will show some of the strongest growth in the world for its incentive industry and is confident that the country has the necessary facilities, dedication and expertise to cater to ever-increasing group sizes in the coming years.

Taiwan and Thailand lead the way from Asia in providing regular and large-scale incentive groups from Asia. In fact of the total number of arrivals from Taiwan into Australia, around seven per cent arrived as a member of an incentive group, which was around 8,000 arrivals for 2003.

In 2004, the ATC is hoping to see this figure increase to a massive 10,000 arrivals from Taiwan purely on incentive travel trips. Some of the companies that have or will produce more incentive business for Australia in the coming years are ING, NanShan Life, Taiwan Life and Amway Taiwan.

In terms of active source markets for incentives to Australia, China is also just beginning to produce very large numbers as well and ATC General Manager North Asia and Business Tourism Mr Johnny Nee said he also expected strong growth from China in the coming years.

"While Taiwan and Thailand are definitely priority markets for the ATC as markets for well-organised and large incentive groups, China is also maturing quickly and definitely has the potential to be one of our best source markets," Mr Nee added. "This is also being helped by continual increases in the number of flights between China and Australia and also Hong Kong (easily accessible by air from China) and Australia.

"After the Taiwan, Thailand and China markets, we see Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea as the markets providing the most business for us. India is also starting to open up rapidly and we are keeping a very close watch on that market as well."