TOURISM continues to shine brightly with arrivals during January-July this year reaching 22.6 million, an increase of 11% over this same period last year, and revenue they generated reaching 1.18 trillion baht, Thai News Agency reported today (July 20, 2018)
Tourism and Sports Ministry Permanent Secretary Phongphanu Sawetrun said there was a surge even last month when this industry was rocked by a tourist boat capsizing off Phuket and parts of the country being flooded.
This led to 1% drop in the number of Chinese tourists, who are the key market, but even so July’s total of tourist arrivals reached 3,175,981, or an increase of 2.85% over the same period last year.
Most of the tourists who came in July were from East Asia, totaling 2,224,578, followed by Europe, South Asia, America, the Middle East, Oceania, and Africa respectively.
A breakdown of the nationalities of tourists who visited Thailand in July shows the top 10 were Chinese, Malaysians, Koreans, Laotians, Indians, Japanese, Vietnamese, Hong Kongers, Americans and Britons bringing in total revenue of 166,378.72 million baht, an increase of 6.38% from the same period last year.
Mr Phongphanu expects Chinese tourists to steadily return to Thailand from now on, especially around October 1 which is their national day and a long holiday, bringing in 3 trillion baht revenue this year as targeted.
CAPTIONS:
Top: Tourists walking along Bangla Road at Phuket’s Patong beach. Photo: Ben Reeves (CC-BY-2.0)
In-text: A dinner cruise along the Chao Phraya river is a popular tourist activity. Photo: eGuide Travel (CC-BY-2.0)
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