Madrid - The travails of the tourism industry in Asia, hit across the bows by the SARS respiratory illness three years ago, were a fading memory in 2005 as the continent attracted an increase of 11 million visitors over 2004, the World Tourism Organisation (WTO) said on Tuesday.

In a strong year for the industry as a whole, with overall growth in tourist trips of 5,5 percent, Asia and the Pacific accounted for a major slice of the cake with 156,2 million visitors from a record global total of 808 million.

Asia's overall showing of a 7,4 percent increase was particularly solid given that it came on the back of a whopping 27,3 percent advance the previous year and extrapolations for 2006 show that Asia and the Pacific will, along with the Middle East, exceed 2005.

"Asia and the Pacific is expected to be the fastest-growing region in the world, confirming thus the dynamism of the tourism sector in this part of the globe," the WTO said, highlighting a performance that was "impressive coming immediately after such a strong performance the previous year."

African tourism is projected to decline

Shaving growth compared with 2004 was the December 2004 tsunami that dealt a major blow to Thailand and Indonesia in particular within Asia.

Terrorism is a further factor holding back growth after SARS caused arrivals to slide some ten percent in 2003.

"Indonesia's most popular holiday resort, Bali, is still reeling from the terrorist bombing of October 2005 - the second in three years," the WTO noted.

By contrast, 2006 is expected to show more moderate performance, with Europe's "mature destinations" set to record "slow but stable growth of around three percent," the same as in the Americas.

Growth in African tourism is projected to decline from dazzling 10 percent in 2005 to six in 2006.

Although a breakdown of figures by country is not yet available, the WTO said the continent had once again outperformed the Americas for a fourth straight year, the latter attracting 133,1 million tourists.

North-East Asia welcomed 87,5 million visitors for a 10 percent increase, compared with 50,2 million for South-East Asia, 10,6 for Oceania and 7,9 for South Asia.

Leading North East Asia was emerging top destination China, which saw a 13 percent estimated rise as the Middle Kingdom consolidated its showing as the fourth-favourite country to visit, closing in on the United States.

France and Spain remain the global destinations of choice.