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2018: Thailand off to a positive start

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BANGKOK, 22 February 2018: Thailand started 2018 on the right foot clocking up 3,533,528 tourist arrivals in January, up 10.87% on the same month last year.

Of the 3.5 million total, East Asia supplied a massive 2,146,156 visits, dominated by the China outbound market that supplied 970,000 visits up 12.84%.

Europe was the second highest source market with 900,000 visits followed by the Americas, South Asia, Oceania (mainly Australia and New Zealand) the Middle East and Africa.

Ministry of Tourism and Sports permanent secretary, Pongpanu Svetarundra, told a press briefing yesterday that January saw an expansion in tourist arrivals in almost every region.

“In particular, South Asia expanded by 20.65% mainly driven by visits from India,” he said.

The top 10 source markets for tourist arrivals across all regions were China, Malaysia, Russia, Korea, Laos, Japan, India, United States, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Visits from Russia grew 28% the highest increase of all the top 10 markets. India delivered a 22% increase in visits, but generally the market underperforms when compared with its potential to generate outbound trips.  India could be a valuable tool to balance off the dominant China market and airlines are now gearing up to tap the business potential by increasing services between India’s major cities and Bangkok.

There is growing concern that the reliance on China could be damaging in the long-run for Thai tourism. Chinese tour operators wield considerable power and are often accused of investing heavily in hotels, transport and other services that reduces the financial benefits for the country.

India offers a massive opportunity for Thai travel companies to expand their business particularly in specialised markets such as company incentives and weddings.

The ministry reported estimated tourist earnings in January reached THB188,890.60 million, an increase of 11.59% over same period of last year.

The top 10 source markets for tourist spend were: China; Russia; Korea; United States; Malaysia; United Kingdom; France; Germany; India and Australia.

5 COMMENTS

  1. China outbound market that supplied 970,000 — this will require about 220 flights daily and fully booked by Chinese tourists.

    the real flights are about 150-160 daily, far from 220. not to mention there are other passengers who are not Chinese tourists.

    • The ministry of tourism has a story to tell. Therefore we will report it. We have repeatedly expressed the view that the travel industry requires more reliable data on tourists, rather than counting heads at border checkpoints. In truth, the definition used by the ministry is not tourist arrivals, but 24-hour minimum BCs (border crossings). We assume the ministry refrains from counting day-return trips at land checkpoints. The ministry should be more transparent on its methodology. However, as long as it uses the same counting principle as in the past the January figure does confirm an increase. The biggest area the ministry could improve is the revenue estimates and also it should add studies and counts of specialised areas in tourism such as weddings, business tourism (events). Thanks for the comment and warning on reputation management. Noted.

      • BBK post no longer publishes stories as such. don’t believe any major news outlets do.

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