Tourist arrivals up again – 11 percent rise year on year

Thailand welcomed 22,657,730 visitors over between January-July 2018, up by 11 percent over the same period in 2017, according to preliminary figures collected by the Ministry of Tourism and Sports. Estimated visitor expenditure also rose significantly, up 14.44 percent to 1.18 trillion baht.

The top ten source markets of visitors to Thailand in January – July 2018:

SOURCE: Ministry of Tourism and Sports

The TAT Governor Mr. Yuthasak Supasorn says, “This strong growth is very encouraging in terms of numbers, but even more important are some of the emerging new trends; such as, the 23.3 percent 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.”

East Asian countries accounted for 15.45 million visitors, or 68 percent 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 percent), Lao PDR. (+9.31 percent), Cambodia (+8.43 percent), Vietnam (+7.83 percent), Indonesia (+7.67 percent), Malaysia (+6.80 percent) and Singapore (+2.97 percent). The only contractions were from Myanmar (-0.36 percent) and Brunei (-11.04 percent).

Arrivals from Europe were up 6.37 percent to 4.05 million. Russia is the largest source market out of Europe, with arrivals of 900,712, up by 16.24 percent.

Arrivals from the Americas were up 2.99 percent to 948,872. The main market, USA, was up by 5.82 percent to 656,327.

Arrivals from South Asia grew by 12.11 percent to 1,133,057. India topped the list with arrivals of 919,130, up 13.24 percent.

Arrivals from Oceania declined by 1.49 percent to 532,296 visitors, largely due to lower arrivals from Australia (-1.82 percent).

Arrivals from the Middle East declined by 4.56 percent to 432,054.

Arrivals from Africa grew by 7.48 percent to 106,394. The top performing market was South Africa, up by 14.56 percent to 54,651.

In terms of revenue earnings, this is the breakdown of the estimated expenditure by the top ten performing markets:

SOURCE: Ministry of Tourism and Sports