BANGKOK, 30 April 2018: Despite the Songkran festival draining the travel budgets dry, Agoda.com has monitored a surge in Thais booking holidays for the May Day holiday.
Smart travellers set off last Friday and took Monday off under their annual holiday quota (usually 10 working days a year) to give them a four-day break including Labour Day 1 May.
Booking trends for 1 May show there has been no loss of travel appetite even after a five-day break just two week earlier in April for the Songkran festival.
Agoda’s check of booking interest and actually bookings show Tokyo, Japan, was the most popular destination for Thais booking through Agoda 1 May.
But five Thai destinations predictably dominated the top 10 list for bookings with Bangkok leading driven by bookings from Thais living outside of the Thai capital.
Pattaya was the third most popular and Hua Hin the fourth mainly driven by Bangkok residents who escape to the nearest beach destinations by car.
Using low-cost air travel Phuket was fifth and Chiang Mai ninth.
But that still leaves us to ponder over the popularity of Japan’s destinations for long weekend travel (four to five days) Tokyo was top and Osaka seventh both have festivities linked to Japan’s Golden Week such as food festivals, traditional matsuri (Japanese festivals) and outdoor music events.
Other East Asia destinations in the top 10 were Seoul Korea, Taipei in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
The top ten Thai traveler destinations for Labor Day (1 May):
| Ranking | Destination |
| 1 | Tokyo, Japan |
| 2 | Bangkok, Thailand |
| 3 | Pattaya, Thailand |
| 4 | Hua Hin, Thailand |
| 5 | Phuket, Thailand |
| 6 | Seoul, South Korea |
| 7 | Osaka, Japan |
| 8 | Taipei, Taiwan |
| 9 | Chiang Mai, Thailand |
| 10 | Hong Kong |
Top ten destinations for Thai travelers
Usually, Singapore figures in the top destinations for Thais taking a break and there are plenty of cheap fares on the Bangkok-Singapore run, but hotels are expensive.
Agoda.com booking results are based on travellers booking hotels and buying their own fares as opposed to booking a holiday package through a travel agency in Thailand.
Group travel is still a player with tour companies offering visa services, but in the case of Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, Thais enjoy visa-free travel. There are also low-cost airline options and if a traveller has one hour to spare to browse online and search for hotel and flight deals on various online travel agency websites they can book and buy a bargain to go in no time at all.
