A million tourists have arrived in Phang Nga this year

A million tourists have made the trip to Thailand’s holiday hotspot province of Phang Nga this year. Phang Nga’s millionth foreign tourist, Veronika Labajova from Slovakia, was welcomed with gifts from tourism officials on November 6.

Now, Phang Nga has set a goal of drawing up to 10 million tourists next year. Governor Ekkarat Leesen spoke on Saturday at the launch of Phang Nga’s Tourism Season 2022, under the theme “Dive to the Nature – Enjoy It All.”

Governor Ekkarat said the province was aiming for 10 million domestic and foreign tourists and expected to generate at least 1 billion baht in revenue, Nation Thailand reported.

As of October 26, Thailand witnessed 7,349,843 international tourists arriving, surpassing the 7 million mark.

While Phang Nga has seen one million tourists this year, Phuket, another holiday hotspot, was reported to have welcomed four million tourists this year back in September.

Thailand is set to surpass its target of 10 million tourists by the end of the year thanks to an influx of Malaysian and Indian visitors. Thailand has welcomed over one million tourists from Malaysia and almost 600,000 tourists from India so far in 2022.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) estimates 18 million international arrivals next year. TAT is setting its sights on short-haul markets like Southeast Asia and the South Pacific while not getting its hopes up for a wave of Chinese tourists coming to Thailand anytime soon. With a 2023 target of 971 billion baht in revenue, TAT officials are expecting just under 600 billion baht of that to come from short-haul sources.