Far East Asia is the premier destination for winter holidays. Mainly because its warmer here nearly throughout the year, plus the landscapes are divine and also because no beach destination can beat such a variety and pureness.

However, towards the mid of year 2010 Thailand, the capital of Far East Tourism saw a decline due to political unrest in its capital city Bangkok. Many flights to Bangkok reportedly lost half their business while airline from Europe started direct flights to Phuket, Thailand’s beach destination in order to attraction western buyer. Flying from the mid of a snow heap and directly landing at palm lined sunny turquoise beach destination Phuket, wasn’t a bad idea at all ! Actually it worked better than speculated and tourism in Thailand revived as we moved towards the end of year 2010.

Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism and Sports, preliminary data states that international visitor arrivals in January–November showed a good growth of 12.63% to 14,039,523.

Other destinations in the Far East, as Malaysia and Indonesia prominently, had a different outlook altogether. Malaysia remained safe for its financial capital and International business hub Kuala Lumpur that is never drained out of flights no matter what. Coupled with Malaysian high standard beaches and natural reserves like Borneo and Penang, Flights to Malaysia remained good and stable throughout the year.

Denpasar Bali, Indonesia went through turmoil after the ‘Bali club bombings’ and for a long time the tourist rain never poured heavily on the Bali Beaches but 2010, flights to Bali starting crawling back to recovery stage.

Maldives, Seychelles, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia also celebrated their share of arrivals with a total acquired ‘continent wise’ numbers as follows:

1. South Asia – 22.78%,
2. Middle East – 21.73%,
3. Africa – 16.07%,
4. East Asia – 15.14%
5. Europe – 8.15%

With a record high increase by 22.78% South Asia won it all through consistent investment in promoting tourism by television and other media promotional programs, global travel trade shows, regional road shows, opening up skies to new routes and new airlines, hard-sell marketing events, partnerships with airlines and tour operators, tourist visa fee waiver, reduced aircraft landing and parking charges, etc.