Ultsch Consult Insights — Tourism / Europe Travel Intelligence

Europe’s Long-Haul Barometer Tracks Seven Overseas Markets. None Are in Southeast Asia.

Official WTTC data confirms Southeast Asia is barely visible in outbound market rankings today. But that says more about how little Europe has targeted the region so far than about the region’s actual potential.

The European Travel Commission’s Long-Haul Travel Barometer tracks seven overseas source markets for European tourism: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, South Korea and the United States. Not one Southeast Asian market makes that list — despite a region the WTTC flags for some of the fastest outbound growth worldwide. For DMCs and tour operators already active in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore, that gap looks less like a warning sign and more like an opening.

A barometer with a blind spot

Twice a year, the European Travel Commission (ETC) publishes its Long-Haul Travel Barometer, surveying travel intentions across seven “key overseas markets”: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, South Korea and the United States. It’s the closest thing Europe’s tourism industry has to an official radar screen for long-haul demand. Southeast Asia isn’t on it — not Singapore, not Thailand, not Vietnam, not Malaysia.

That’s a striking omission given what WTTC’s own 2026 Economic Impact Research says about the region. The Global Trends Report names Indonesia as one of the world’s fastest-growing outbound travel markets over the coming decade, and separately flags Thailand among Southeast Asia’s strongest markets for visitor spending growth. The region is clearly on trajectory. It just isn’t being systematically watched by the institution that speaks for European destination marketing.

What the current numbers actually show

To be fair to the barometer, the raw volume data doesn’t (yet) make an obvious case for inclusion. WTTC’s 2026 country factsheets for Thailand and Malaysia show outbound travel dominated by short-haul, regional trips. Thailand’s top five outbound markets in 2025 were Laos (18%), Malaysia (16%), Cambodia (14%), Japan (11%) and China (6%) — no European country in sight. Malaysia’s outbound picture looks similar: Thailand (31%), Indonesia (22%), China (8%), India (5%) and Singapore (5%).

But both countries still send a meaningful share of trips beyond that regional top five — 35% for Thailand, 29% for Malaysia — spread across everywhere else in the world, Europe included. In other words: a genuine long-haul travel appetite already exists in these markets. It’s simply too fragmented across many destinations to show up as a single line in a top-five ranking, and too small in absolute volume, so far, to earn Europe a seat on its own barometer.

An older study still worth reading

The most detailed look at how Southeast Asians actually think about Europe as a destination comes from a 2019 ETC-commissioned study — pre-pandemic, and we haven’t found evidence it has been repeated since, which is itself part of the visibility gap this article is about. Treated as a structural snapshot of traveller psychology rather than current volume data, its central finding still holds intuitive weight: Europe ranked as the single most aspirational long-haul destination for travellers from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, ahead of North America. The study also found that more affluent travellers in these markets travel more frequently and take longer holidays, with a typical long-haul trip running 10 to 21 days — considerably longer than most short-haul regional breaks.

That combination — high aspiration, longer stays, a willingness among affluent segments to travel further and more often — describes exactly the kind of visitor European destinations usually compete hardest to attract. It’s a profile worth re-verifying with current data, but it is not a profile that has an obvious reason to have disappeared.

The markets already acting on it

A handful of European destinations aren’t waiting for a formal signal. France’s national tourism organisation, Atout France, has named Vietnam among its priority ASEAN markets, citing the country’s expanding middle class and rising interest in European destinations, and separately lists Indonesia among six priority ASEAN markets for the same reason — large population, rapidly expanding international travel demand. Both moves are explicitly justified by longer stays and higher spending patterns compared with other visitor segments.

These are early, targeted moves by individual national tourism organisations, not evidence of an industry-wide shift. Most European destinations still have no comparable Southeast Asia strategy — which is precisely the gap that makes France’s approach worth watching.

What this means for DMCs and tour operators in the region

None of this makes Southeast Asia a volume market for Europe today, and framing it that way would overstate the current data. What it does show is a market that is aspirational, demonstrably willing to travel further and spend more among its more affluent segments, and — going by ETC’s own tracking — not yet systematically targeted by most of the European tourism industry. For DMCs and tour operators already building product and relationships between Southeast Asia and Europe, that combination is the opening: the audience is smaller than the established long-haul markets, but it is underserved, not undersized. Early positioning now, before Europe’s institutional radar catches up, is worth more than waiting for a market that becomes obvious to everyone at once.

Sources

• European Travel Commission (ETC) – Long-Haul Travel Barometer 1/2026, as reported by TravelMole and Hospitality Net. travelmole.com
• WTTC – Thailand & Malaysia Travel & Tourism Economic Impact Research (2026 EIR: Key Highlights), as of April 2026. researchhub.wttc.org
• WTTC – Economic Impact Research: Global Trends Report (2026). researchhub.wttc.org
• European Travel Commission – “Study on the South-East Asian Outbound Travel Market with a Focus on Europe as a Tourism Destination,” Market Vision Research & Consulting Services for ETC, September 2019. etc-corporate.org
• Travel And Tour World – “France Tourism Recovery Gains Strength in 2026 as Growing ASEAN Markets… Open New Opportunities” (Atout France priority markets). travelandtourworld.com