Tourism revival goes into reverse

Thailand is suffering from a lack of Chinese visitors, writes Narumon Kasemsuk

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Over the past three years, Thai tourism has been struggling to regain the peak it once reached prior to the pandemic, while neighbouring countries Malaysia and Vietnam have already surpassed their performance in 2019, recording 37 million and 17 million tourist arrivals, respectively.

The closest opportunity occurred in 2024 when Thailand welcomed 35.5 million foreign tourists, an increase of 26% year-on-year.

However, repeating the success of 2019 when 39.9 million foreign tourists arrived and spending hit 1.9 trillion baht is unlikely to occur in 2025, given that Thailand only attracted 16.6 million foreign arrivals in the first half, dipping 4.6% year-on-year.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) is scheduled to unveil its marketing direction for 2026 today under the “Healing is a new Luxury” theme, as well as the 2026 target for the international market, which is expected to be only 1.63 trillion baht from 36 million visitors, while targeting 214 million domestic trips, generating 1.17 trillion baht.

Even if Thailand was actually able to achieve the revenue goal of 2.8 trillion baht next year, there is still a long way to reach the 3 trillion baht earned in 2019.

ARDUOUS TASK

During the pandemic, Thailand saw a sharp plunge from 39.9 million tourists in 2019 to just 427,000 in 2021, a decrease of approximately 93 times.

A modest rebound just began in the second half of 2022 after the government lifted entry restrictions on July 1, including the Thailand Pass registration and mandatory health insurance.

Signs of hope became more evident in 2023, when the country experienced an unexpected surge to 28 million tourists, up from only 11 million in 2022. This growth was largely driven by the reopening of China's borders in January 2023.

At the time, the TAT anticipated a smooth path to full recovery, fuelled by pent-up demand across global markets.