Nordea, der har fulgt pandemien og vaccinationsudviklingen intenst, tror ikke, at den internationale turisme kommer igen i år. I Latinamerika har der været en større grad af vaccinationer end i Asien, så turismen er taget til, men generelt ligger Emerging Economies langt efter industrilandene, hvor den interne turisme har udviklet sig pænt, så det bliver ikke i år, at europæerne strømmer til det amerikanske kontinent eller Thailands strande.
Uddrag fra Nordea:
When will international tourism recover? Certainly not this year
We are increasingly upbeat on Latam versus Asia as divergencies between the regions become wider. We expect the divergence in the vaccine outlook to translate into a clear divergence in the tourism recovery.
Main findings
- 8-months into the vaccine race has made it abundantly clear that developed markets will win the race by miles. Turning to emerging markets, current data suggests Latam will outperform Asia in the vaccine roll-out.
- Mexico and Brazil are on the trajectory to a relatively strong tourism recovery heavily supported by a fast recovery in domestic/regional tourism
- Thailand looks to be in a one-way roller-coaster with tourism declining from 40mn in 2019 to what will be in the range of 500-700 thousand in 2021 – we do not see any realistic recovery in the short-to-medium term.
- Long MXN/THB is a high-carry position that should continue to work due to the divergence in the vaccine- and tourism outlook.
The vaccine race began in 2020 and even though the race is not officially over yet, winners and losers can be identified with reasonable certainty. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of developed markets have had better access to the vaccine supply, while some emerging economies have simply put been repressed by limited vaccine opportunities and difficulties administering nationwide vaccination rollouts.
Zeroing in on divergent timelines, LatAm is outperforming Asia: Mexico, Brazil and Argentina are on a much steeper vaccine trajectory compared to India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.
Over the summer we have seen increasing evidence emphasizing the importance of vaccination rollouts with the latest focus being on the surge of the delta variant in the UK. While the UK has had a sharp rise in new cases, hospitalisations have remained relatively low compared to previous infection waves (chart 2) due to a relatively effective vaccine roll-out sheltering the older and more vulnerable age-groups.
Putting this into perspective, there is a point to be made on demographic differences between developed and emerging markets with the latter generally exhibiting lower hospitalisation probabilities for none-immune susceptible. While this point is somewhat relevant for a quite vaccinated Latam population it is not so relevant for Asia with a slow administered vaccine pace and people covered ratio hovering the 12-20 % range. In other words, Asia’s largest risk is still case development.
If “to travel is to live” as H.C. Andersen once wrote, we all died in 2020. Comparing tourism data across emerging markets from Q1-2019 to Q1-2021 we depict the relative difference in international arrivals and domestic travel using any type of accommodation as our proxy.
First, naturally domestic tourism will pick up much much much faster than international tourism. Second, Brazil and Mexico who have both had a relatively efficient vaccine rollout coupled with a more relaxed restriction policy have already shown a strong pickup in international tourism compared to the deep and daunting international tourism decline in Thailand and other Asian markets.
