DRMumbai: Thailand welcomed visitor arrivals of 22,657,730 in January-July 2018, up by 11 per cent over the same period of 2017, according to preliminary figures tabulated by the Ministry of Tourism and Sports. Estimated visitor expenditure also rose significantly, up 14.44 percent to 1.18 trillion Baht.
Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor Yuthasak Supasorn commented, “This strong growth is very encouraging in terms of numbers, but even are more important are some of the emerging new trends; such as, the 23.3 per cent increase in visitor arrivals by sea (July 2018), and the higher hotel occupancies being experienced by emerging secondary provinces; such as, Rayong, Suphan Buri, Chainat, Nakhon Pathom, Ang Thong and Phatthalung.”
Some key performance indicators of international arrivals in January-July 2018 were as follows:
East Asian generated 15.45 million visitors, or 68 per cent of the total. China topped the list with 6,860,924 million arrivals. ASEAN countries generated over 5.62 million arrivals, with growth from the Philippines (+9.93 per cent), Lao PDR. (+9.31 per cent), Cambodia (+8.43 per cent), Vietnam (+7.83 per cent), Indonesia (+7.67 per cent), Malaysia (+6.80 per cent), Singapore (+2.97 per cent), except Myanmar (-0.36 per cent) and Brunei (-11.04 per cent).
- Arrivals from Europe were up 6.37 per cent to 4.05 million. Russia is the largest source market out of Europe, with arrivals of 900,712, up by 16.24 per cent
- Arrivals from the Americas were up 2.99 per cent market, USA, was up by 5.82 per cent to 656,327.
- Arrivals from South Asia grew by 12.11 per cent to 1,133,057. India topped the list with arrivals of 919,130, up 13.24 per cent
- Arrivals from Oceania declined by 1.49 per cent to 532,296 visitors, largely due to lower arrivals from both Australia (-1.82 per cent) New Zealand (+0.54 per cent)
- Arrivals from the Middle East declined by 4.56 per cent to 432,054
- Arrivals from Africa grew by 7.48 per cent to 106,394. The top performing market was South Africa, up by 14.56 per cent to 54,651
