PATA 2026 Reveals New Directions for the Global Tourism Industry, Indonesia Has Great Opportunities

JAKARTA - Asia Pacific tourism continues to show dynamic growth as travelers increase their interest in more personal, authentic, and technology-based travel experiences.

This area is even projected to remain one of the world's growth centers for the travel industry in the next few years, driven by high intra-regional tourist mobility, digitalization development, and changes in the travel patterns of the new generation of global tourists.

The change is one of the main topics in the PATA Annual Summit 2026 which was held on May 11-13, 2026 in Gyeongju and Pohang, South Korea. The annual forum with the theme "Navigating Towards a Resilient Future" was attended by more than 550 delegates from more than 35 destinations in Asia Pacific, including Ardiyansyah Djafar who attended as a delegate of the PATA Indonesia Chapter.

In addition to presenting more than 60 speakers from the global tourism sector, ranging from regulators, tourism boards, digital platforms, to travel technology companies, this forum also highlights the new direction of the Asia Pacific tourism industry, which is now increasingly influenced by changes in traveler behavior.

The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) projects that the number of international visitor arrivals in the Asia Pacific region will reach a baseline of 761.2 million by 2028. Meanwhile, around 68.3 percent of the region's inbound travel in 2025 is expected to come from intra-regional travel in the Asia Pacific region or intra-regional travel.

According to Ardiyansyah, this condition is a signal that the competition for tourist destinations in the future will no longer depend solely on the number of tourist visits, but rather the ability of each destination to understand the changing needs of tourists.

"The biggest insight from the PATA Annual Summit 2026 is that the future of tourism in Asia Pacific is no longer determined by who brings the most tourists, but who is best able to read changes in traveler behavior," Ardiyansyah said in a statement to VOI, Friday, May 15.

In one of the sessions presented by travel marketing technology company Sojern, it was revealed that destination marketing is currently undergoing a major transformation.

Changes in tourist expectations, the development of artificial intelligence (AI), to the way tourists find inspiration and make travel reservations are factors that change the strategy for promoting tourist destinations globally.

Through the State of Destination Marketing 2026 report, Sojern also highlights the increasing pressure on destination marketers to be able to show measurable impact from the marketing strategies they run.

For Indonesia, this trend change is considered very relevant to the current condition of the national tourism industry. With the achievement of 15.39 million foreign tourist visits throughout 2025, 1.20 billion trips of Indonesian tourists, and 1.09 million foreign tourist visits in March 2026, Indonesia is considered to have a strong enough market foundation to continue to grow.

"Indonesia's current challenge is not only to bring in tourists, but how to turn this potential into a more authentic, digital-ready, sustainable, inclusive, and high-value experience, both for foreign and domestic tourists," he said.

According to him, the change in the behavior of global tourists actually opens up great opportunities for Indonesia to strengthen the positioning of tourism based on experience, culture, sustainability, and digital connectivity that is increasingly integrated with the needs of today's tourists.

In addition to discussing the transformation of the global tourism industry, the PATA Annual Summit 2026 also raised a number of other strategic issues such as sustainable tourism governance, digital tourism resilience, the development of AI in the travel sector, to strengthening the young tourism talent in the Asia Pacific region.

Ardiyansyah also hopes that more national tourism industry players, including regulators such as the Ministry of Tourism and InJourney, can participate in similar international forums in the coming years.

"Moments like the PATA Annual Summit are important not only for tourism industry players, but also for tourism regulators and policymakers in Indonesia. This forum provides insight, data, and an overview of the direction of change in the global tourism industry that is very relevant to take the right destination development strategies for Indonesia in the future," concluded Ardiyansyah.