MasterCard Worldwide Friday announced the results of its latest MasterIndex of Travel report, expecting Chinese Mainland to reach 17.2 millions outbound travelers in the next 6 months.

The survey predicted a slowdown in growth of outbound travel across the Asia Pacific in the first six months of 2007. Out of 13 markets, leading the growth is Chinese Mainland whose number of outbound travelers is expected to reach 17.2 millions in the first half of this year.

Chinese Mainland, Malaysia and Thailand are experiencing the highest year-on-year growth, their growth rates of outbound travel are 12 percent, 7.8 percent and 7.2 percent respectively, while that of most markets in the Asia Pacific have dropped compared to the previous survey.

Markets seeing the greatest slowdown in the rate of growth in outbound travel are Hong Kong, Korea and Malaysia.

"This near term outlook of outbound travel appears to be consistent with our long term view of a massive expansion of overseas travel in Asia in the coming decade.

"Some marginal slowdown in growth in some markets is to be expected. The important thing to note is that growth momentum remains intact," said the economic advisor to MasterCard Worldwide in Asia Pacific Yuwa Hedrick-Wong.

Released twice a year, the MasterIndex of Travel includes a survey of travel trends among the urban middle class across 13 markets in the Asia Pacific region.

(Xinhua News Agency February 3, 2007)