Thailand's March foreign tourist arrivals tumble 76.4% year-on-year amid virus crisis

[webfact]

Thailand's March foreign tourist arrivals tumble 76.4% year-on-year amid virus crisis

 

FILE PHOTO: Brazilian citizens wearing protective face masks after they got boarding passes to a repatriation flight at the Suvarnabhumi Airport while the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Bangkok, Thailand, April 21, 2020. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

 

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Foreign tourist arrivals in Thailand slumped 76.4% in March from a year earlier after a 42.8% drop in the previous month, hit by the coronavirus outbreak, tourism ministry data showed on Thursday.

 

A total of 0.82 million tourists in March spent about 39.5 billion baht ($1.22 billion), down 77.6% from a year earlier.

 

Visitors from China, Thailand's biggest source of tourists, plunged 94.2% from a year earlier.

 

Tourism is a key driver of Thai growth, with foreign tourist receipts accounting for 11% of gross domestic product last year.

 

(Reporting by Orathai Sriring; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-04-23

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

- Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking COVID-19 updates

[DrTuner]

Remind me again when did they close the borders?

[OnTheGround]

76,4%?

Numbers getting closer to real numbers, still some error. I assume they included returning Thais, to get these numbers.

Can't wait to see numbers of visitors for April.  I expect down 99,9%.

 

Then in november we read about 370% increase - of course. ????

 

[Puchaiyank]

The ole Thai tourist ship has been listing to one side for a while now...this virus may sink her...a new more classy tourist experience may emerge from the depths of despair...

 

Thais may actually have to treat tourists like guests...some nationalities exempted...

[fondue zoo]

18 minutes ago, webfact said:

0.82 million tourists in March spent about 39.5 billion baht

I wonder what the nationality breakdown was for the 800000+ visitors.

[Misterwhisper]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

A total of 0.82 million tourists in March

There were 820 THOUSAND  foreign tourist arrivals in Thailand in March?

 

How did they get in, since all airports are closed for regular flights? Smuggled in on fishing trawlers? Swimming across the Mekong from Laos?

 

The land border between Thailand and Malaysia is closed as well.

 

So... where did these 820,000 tourists come from?

 

Or is this just shoddy, misleading reporting and in fact the 820,000 figure relates to ALL foreign tourist arrivals since January (i.e. NOT only in March)?

 

But then again, it clearly states: "A total of 0.82 million tourists in March spent about 39.5 billion baht..."

 

[Thailand]

You would think the only way is up but not before a few more horrific downturns in the figures. 

Can't even promote domestic tourism with everything in lockdown of some sort.

[madmitch]

19 minutes ago, Misterwhisper said:

There were 820 THOUSAND  foreign tourist arrivals in Thailand in March?

 

How did they get in, since all airports are closed for regular flights? Smuggled in on fishing trawlers? Swimming across the Mekong from Laos?

 

The land border between Thailand and Malaysia is closed as well.

 

So... where did these 820,000 tourists come from?

 

Or is this just shoddy, misleading reporting and in fact the 820,000 figure relates to ALL foreign tourist arrivals since January (i.e. NOT only in March)?

 

But then again, it clearly states: "A total of 0.82 million tourists in March spent about 39.5 billion baht..."

 

There were plenty of tourists arriving in the first half of March, many taking advantage of cheap flights and packages from Europe and Russians who already had bookings were reluctant to cancel.

 

Nothing to dispute in these figures.

[Matzzon]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Foreign tourist arrivals in Thailand slumped 76.4% in March

How surprising! Might that result have anything to do with that the country closed it´s borders?

[rasmus5150]

2 hours ago, madmitch said:

There were plenty of tourists arriving in the first half of March, many taking advantage of cheap flights and packages from Europe and Russians who already had bookings were reluctant to cancel.

 

Nothing to dispute in these figures.

I totally agree.

And i actually met half of all these tourists in the queue at the immigration office end of March.

[Chelseafan]

5 hours ago, Puchaiyank said:

The ole Thai tourist ship has been listing to one side for a while now...this virus may sink her...a new more classy tourist experience may emerge from the depths of despair...

 

No problem, I'll put on a tie..

 

[DrTuner]

The March stats became available in case somebody has the desire to dig deeper: https://www.immigration.go.th/immigration_stats

[dabhand]

This is maybe an easier read of the March 2020 figures. Just need to click on the link.

 

https://www.mots.go.th/more_news_new.php?cid=593

[cyril sneer]

was on it's way down, covid or not

[DrTuner]

26 minutes ago, dabhand said:

This is maybe an easier read of the March 2020 figures. Just need to click on the link.

 

https://www.mots.go.th/more_news_new.php?cid=593

Nice. As many noticed in March, the Russians were still there, only a 40% drop. Hardcore people. Of course now they are gone, too.

[Cake Monster]

6 hours ago, madmitch said:

There were plenty of tourists arriving in the first half of March, many taking advantage of cheap flights and packages from Europe and Russians who already had bookings were reluctant to cancel.

 

Nothing to dispute in these figures.

There were many Tourists arriving right up to March 19th.

Thats when a lot of Visa,s were stopped being issued at Savanhaket, and other border entries, and many flights were also stopped on about 20th March.

Therefore these figures for about 2/3 rds of the Month.

[RichardColeman]

I'm pretty sure that when they publish the figures for this year, they will be the 'expected' amount that were due 2020 with an * so there is no big dip

[Dap]

After all this time 76.4%! that would account for 24% of millions still arriving? THAT many incredibly stupid people? Really? Did I read this wrong? or is TAT just being TAT?

[rwill]

1 hour ago, DrTuner said:

Nice. As many noticed in March, the Russians were still there, only a 40% drop. Hardcore people. Of course now they are gone, too.

Except the ones living in caves

 

[Swimfan]

So is Tourism 11 percent of GDP or 20 or 17 or 25. Seems to change every week ????

[Stargeezr]

Yay for March. I escaped Thailand o the 14th. I was a tourist number leaving the country,

but TAT , likely used my passing the security in their favor.  I too am looking forward to the

official numbers for April. Even May  should be low numbers because so many people

out of work all over the world. Airlines shut down, borders closed.  Good Luck TAT.

Geezer

[sezze]

Looks correct , 1st 10 days of march all about normal , only Chinese were less . After the situation hurricaned out of control with close to 0 in last week . April numbers are the ones to look out for , they got to be close to 0 . May is prob not better , maybe start of recovery in June , but it would only be very very light recovery if it is there at all . I think , best guess , we can only see real bit of recovery in September/October if we are lucky , and that number will still be less then 25% y/y arrivals .

[baansgr]

5 hours ago, Swimfan said:

So is Tourism 11 percent of GDP or 20 or 17 or 25. Seems to change every week ????

With all the attached cottage industries, probably more like 40%...

[drbeach]

15 hours ago, DrTuner said:

Remind me again when did they close the borders?

Roughly around March 18 or 19 for arrivals by air, and by March 25 for land based arrivals.

[tifino]

dunno why they are bothering putting up Stats - as it doesn't matter anymore... not for months more probably.  

 

Lucky I don't have to go back in a hurry to help their figures go 'up' as yet

 - still have 2'n'a'half bottles still of Mekhong to see us thru the big wait in OZ

[Soikhaonoiken]

The figures don't make sense as usual, the borders where closed, yet tourist still arrive??  and this report states tourisum is 11% of GDP, however, all previous reports have said that tourisum accounted for 18-20% of GDP,... 

[Chang_paarp]

If the numbers keep dropping like this they will be giving out the names and countries of origin along with the "statistics".

[kiwikeith]

20 hours ago, Puchaiyank said:

The ole Thai tourist ship has been listing to one side for a while now...this virus may sink her...a new more classy tourist experience may emerge from the depths of despair...

 

Thais may actually have to treat tourists like guests...some nationalities exempted...

The Wuhan express train line will save the Chinese tourists industry. After the vaccine arrives. Next week. Then Los canunlock the doors to Wuhan again. Filthy falungs can wait

[ExpatOilWorker]

20 hours ago, fondue zoo said:

I wonder what the nationality breakdown was for the 800000+ visitors.

By number the biggest arrivals are (Change from March 2019):

 

Laos: 152,379 down 34.0%

Russia: 118,583 down 39.3%

Malaysia: 98,575 down 73.6%

China: 55,047 down 94.4%

Germany: 48,774 down 53.6%

Cambodia: 42,208 down 59.1%

UK: 42,100 down 53.4%

France: 39,385 down 49.5%

Japan: 22,468 down 84.0%

Vietnam: 23,683 down 73.8%

USA: 23,054 down 78.8%

Australia: 18,457 down 66.9%

Sweden: 14,181 down 53.5%

Singapore: 14,145 down 83.7%

India: 12,709 down 91.9%

Indonesia: 11,005 down 82.3%

Myanmar: 10,484 down 71.0%

HK: 9,953 down 86.8%

Philippines: 9,792 down 73.7%

Finland: 9,422 down 40.1%

Holland: 9,003 down 47.3%

Denmark: 8,536 down 50.5%

South Korea: 8,019 down 94.7%

Canada: 7,567 down 74.2%

Poland: 6,178 down 57.7%

Norway: 5,035 down 53.4%

[hotchilli]

22 hours ago, DrTuner said:

Remind me again when did they close the borders?

Evidently not early enough.