Ministry of Tourism and Sports released its latest tourists arrivals data for Thailand revealing a 14.9% increase for the first three months on 5,356,935 visits.
The ministry noted that problems in the Middle East and Africa caused a decline in those two markets, while travel from Japan declined after the 11 March catastrophe. However, Japan continued to be third top source of tourists during the three months.
Arrivals from the Middle East that have seen a steady growth year-on-year, declined 3.03% from 154,150 to 149,479. Egypt, Israel, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia showed improvements of 3%, 5.56%, 6.22% and 7.71% respectivel, but other Middle East markets declined (UAE down 8.64% and other markets by 7.47%).
The growth rate in African markets slowed, too, from a 24.77% peak to 9.65% on 32,259 arrivals for the first quarter of the year.
Arrivals from other regions: 1,384,915 from East Asia (+8.41%); 1.280,788 from Europe (+12.19%); 230,966 from the Americas; 225,349 from South Asia (+8.03%) and 134,108 from Oceania (+8.75%).
Top 10 suppliers were: Malaysia (588,686, +14.7%); China (432,504, +29.53%); Japan (323,435, +5.84%); Russia (310,838, +42.97%); Korea (285,034, +17.95); United Kingdom (251,216, +1.58%); Laos (223,133, +38.42%); Germany (220,211, +0.26%); USA (209,358, +11.48%) and Sweden (205,539, +23.27%).
Source markets in decline apart markets in the Middle East and Japan were: Taiwan (120,671, -6.82%); Brunei (1,975, -8.31%) and Nepal (7,455, -5.07%).
Meanwhile, markets that grew by 20% or more were: Cambodia (42,804, +60.86%); Argentina (4,315, +29.7%); Finland (91,528, +26.66%); Denmark (81,622, +23.48%); Brazil (6,740, +22.93%) and South Asia’s Others (7,140, +20.43%).
The report is based on primary data collected by Immigration Bureau at all points of entry excluding overseas Thais and border pass holders.
Source: TTR Weekly
