Published on : Saturday, March 21, 2015
Despite the shutdown that Bangkok faced tourist arrivals increased by16.3 per cent for Thailand. 2, 65 million international tourists arrived in Thailand during January 2014 according to Statistics released by Department of Tourism, when Thailand was in the midst of violent street protests. However the number of Russian tourists went down by 46 per cent but still Thailand recorded a healthy flow of tourists in the previous year.
It is expected that this year the numbers will surpass 2014 where the performance was somewhat marred by protests and political upheavals. Thailand recorded 2.31 million tourists’ arrivals in 2013 as per the department’s records.
Russian tourists, who were popular visitors in this destination and contributed heavily to the economy, were forced to cut their international trips due to the drop in the value of roubles. Where 269,479 visited Thailand in the month of January last year only 45.97percent, about 145,605 Russian tourists visited Thailand in this year. The drop has been quite significant from 27%, 23% and 21% in the previous months, respectively.
However though Thailand lost its Russian tourists, the Chinese made up for their losses. The Chinese have been trotting all over the globe and since Thailand is a close destination there has been an 86.5 per cent year on year increase in Chinese arrivals in Thailand. In January the increase in arrivals has been recorded at 56.96 per cent and the numbers of visitations have been recorded at 560,399.
Visitors from Asean also jumped up 49.3% year-on-year to 622,277. Asean tourists had increased only 12% in December and just 9% for all of 2014.
Arrivals from Hong Kong grew by 83.9 per cent year on year in January, there was an increase from Taiwanese travellers, 53.9 per cent arrived in the country. These two countries had 18 to 22 percent less visitation in 2014 due to the political unrest in the country.
European arrivals fell by 14.3 per cent in January from the previous year. Spain (8.1%) and Italy (11.3%) marked the only solid increases while important markets like the United Kingdom (down 0.5%) and Germany (up 0.6%).
There was impressive visitation from India and the Middle East. 16.6% Indian visitors and tourists form the Middle East surged 31.1%, led by a 114% increase from the United Arab Emirates, which sent 7,361 travellers to Thailand in the month. So Thailand is definitely heading for a strong market and tourism is definitely their strongest industry.
Tags: Thailand
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