Thailand’s tourist industry saved by growth in the last quarter of 2014

After a year of instability, visitor arrivals to Thailand showed a satisfactory recovery in the final months of 2014 thanks to a 7% increase in tourist inflows in the last quarter.

However, while tourist arrivals to Thailand in 2014 totalled 24.77 million, this represented a significant year-to-year decline of 6.66%.

Political instabality during the first six months of 2014 saw a steep decline in number of tourist arrival of over 12%, according to Thailand’s Department of Tourism, Ministry of Tourism and Sports, based on its latest official statistics.

The official statistics of tourist arrivals to Thailand in 2014 totaled 24,779,768 persons -a drop of 6.66% from the previous year. Revenue generated by the tourist industry totaled 1,147,653 million baht, or a drop of only 4.93% against the previous year. Tourists from East Asia, totaling 14,561,527 persons, were on top of the chart, generating 489,243 million baht of tourism revenue, seconded by European tourists of 6,156,132 persons, with 420,866 million baht of revenue, followed by tourists from North America of 1,104,714 persons, with 76,609 million baht of revenue.

China, Malaysia, and Russia were among the top three nationalities of tourists visiting Thailand in 2014, with the total numbers of tourists of 4,623,806, 2,644,052, and 1,603,813 persons respectively.

The large number of tourist arrival during the last quarter of 2014 saved Thailand from a serious set-back as the political instability during the first half of 2014 resulted in a drop in tourist arrivals of 12%. With the political change, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports and concerned agencies jointly enforced several measures to boost confidence in Thailand’s tourism. One of the most important measures was the removal of visa fees for Chinese tourists.

Since July 2014, tourism in Thailand has started to gradually recover, and escalated to a full-scale recovery in the last quarter, sending the number of tourist arrivals to a 7% increase, to bring the annual negative growth down to only 6.66%.

However, the drop of 6.66% in tourist arrivals was an average of arrivals from all parts of the world. According to the latest report, the highest drop in the number of tourist arrivals was from East Asia with a decline by 8.48%, followed by arrivals from Oceania, South Asia, the Middle East, the Americas, and Europe, respectively. In terms of foreign exchange earnings, the highest decline was 4.93% from Oceania tourists, followed by East Asia, South Asia, the Americas, the Middle East, and Europe respectively.

For the month of December 2014, the number of tourist arrivals in Thailand reached 2,841,333 persons, or an increase of 11.76% against the same period of the previous year. Tourists from East Asia topped the list of arrival totaling 1,641,392 persons, representing 57.77% of the total, followed by tourists from Europe, the Americas, South Asia, Oceania, the Middle East, and Africa.

Among the top 10 visitors, 495,034 tourists were from China; 410,795 from Malaysia; 184,252 from Russia; 135,712 from Singapore; 131,017 from Japan; 114,015 from South Korea; 105,574 from the UK; 93,184 from India; 90,689 from the US; and 90,097 from Germany. The biggest increase in arrival in December 2014 was tourists from Chinese showing a significant rise of 86.5%.

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