Impacts, Benefits and Costs
The primary benefits and costs from liberalisation will be experienced by:
• Passengers, who gain from lower fares and better services; and
• Airlines, which lose out from lower fares, but gain to the extent that costs fall, and
from access to new markets.
The main secondary benefits come from the economic gains countries make from tourism
expenditure. Lower airfares and better services will stimulate inbound tourism and increase
expenditure. Outbound tourism will also increase for some countries, and some countries
may lose from this effect.
There is a range of other impacts which will create benefits or costs, depending on the
circumstances. These include government revenue effects, foreign exchange effects,
employment effects, impacts on risks and improvements to business communications within
ASEAN.
The ways in which the policy options can impact on the benefits and costs facing country are
summarised in a Policy Options/ Objectives Matrix. Impacts do depend on the particular
circumstances facing a country- the relative size of inbound and outbound tourism, its
airlines’ market shares and other factors. Worked examples illustrate how individual countries
can gain, and in some cases lose, from the adoption of particular policy options.