ThinkInsights

ASEAN countries are the booming travelling markets in Asia. According to the report from GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, the number of international visitors to the ASEAN region is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 4.72%, from 129.2 million in 2018 to 155.4 million in 2022. If we just take a look at the 2019 data, Thailand received 39.80 million international visitors in 2019, the biggest market in the ASEAN region. Malaysia took 2nd position with 20.1 million visitors. Vietnam surprisingly is the 3rd biggest travelling market with 18 million visitors in 2019. Singapore and Indonesia ranked the 4th and 5th position with 15.9 million and 13.62 million visitors, respectively.

ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) is a regional organisation established by 10 Southeast Asia and Pacific countries. Indonesia, The Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand are the five founding members who started ASEAN in 1967. Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Brunei joined ASEAN later to closely connect regional collaboration to promote social-cultural, economic, and political advancement in the region. Since 1995, the ASEAN members have enjoyed a free trade zone with each other after a successful tariff-cutting effort. Today ASEAN has become a major global hub of manufacturing and trade. It is also one of the fastest-growing consumer markets in the world, which makes it the new hot spot for multinational enterprises and investors. The data and market insights we collected below offer a snapshot of the online market size of this emerging economic powerhouse.

Singapore and Malaysia are two hot travel destinations for Chinese outbound tourists. In 2019, there’s a total of 3.4 million Chinese visitors to Singapore with average spending of $2,971 US dollars per trip, and 3.04 million to Malaysia with average spending of $956 US dollars. As neighbours, the two countries share similar weather conditions and convenient transport between each other. Still, from the tourism perspective, we found that Singapore and Malaysia were attracting Chinese tourists for quite different reasons.

We need to have a clear picture of how overseas daigou operate and what’re the channels for them to sell the products in China.

The connection between ASEAN countries and China has never been so close as today. China initiated to form a free trade zone with ASEAN countries as early as in the 1990s. In 2020, ASEAN surpassed both the EU and U.S., becoming China’s largest trade partner with USD140 billion in trade volume.