BANGKOK, 3 October 2018: September was not a good month for Thailand’s travel companies as the tally for clients handled at Bangkok’s two gateway airports slumped by 25%.
However, the Association of Thai Travel Agents count of its members’ tour clients arriving at the two airports for the nine months, January to September, improved by a marginal 0.42%.
ATTA bases its data on fees paid by member companies to the Airports of Thailand for meet-and-greet services offered to clients who pre-booked holidays in Thailand.
September is typically a poor month for inbound tour operators, but this time round the month-on-month decline showed agents handled 110,130 fewer clients than in September 2017.
ATTA reported that tourists using member company services during September totalled 330,461, down 25% from 440,591 clients in September 2017. For the nine months, travel agents handled 4,363,558 clients, a slim improvement of 0.42%.
Travel agents have suffered declines in July (62,292 clients lost, down 11.78%) August (119,205 lost, down 22.12%) and September (110,130 lost, down 25%) when compared with same months in 2017.
The blame was mainly attributed to the China market that saw huge cancellations following a fatal boat accident in Phuket in early July.
Over the nine months, China remained the top source market for Thailand’s inbound travel agencies, although the market registered a slight decline of 1.37%. Tour companies handled 2,540,879 Chinese visitors through to 30 September.
Other source markets on the top five country list were: Vietnam supplying 275,483 travel agency clients, up 14.27%; India 208,497 clients, up 11.15%; Korea 183,065 clients, down 9.51% and Japan 135,714 clients, up 8.83%.
China also dominated the market share chart representing 58.23% of all clients handled by ATTA member companies. In second place, Russia and former CIS countries were a distant second with an 8.31% market share, Japan 4.78%, Korea 4.20% and Vietnam 3.11%. It illustrates the massive dependency on the China market that could ultimately constitute a serious risk for the future wellbeing of Thai travel companies.
Data is based on international clients handled at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports by the association’s member companies.
