Thailand hopeful in boosting its tourism industry

[webfact]

A person is seen in water near a beach which is usually full of tourists, amid fear of coronavirus in Phuket, Thailand on March 10, 2020. - Reuters

 

BANGKOK, March 25 (Bernama): Thailand recorded just 7,694 foreign tourists in January this year - the highest number of monthly tourist arrivals so far since the Covid-19 pandemic hit Thailand in 2020.

 

However, the Tourism and Sports Ministry’s data showed the figure is minuscule when compared with 3.81 million arrivals in the same month last year.

 

Thailand closed its borders and banned international passenger flights to curb the spread of Covid-19 pandemic in April last year. It recorded zero foreign visitors from April to September last year. The number of foreign tourists plummeted by 83 per cent to 6.7 million in 2020 compared to almost 40 million in 2019.

 

Full story: https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2021/03/25/thailand-hopeful-in-boosting-its-tourism-industry

 

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[RichardColeman]

18 minutes ago, webfact said:

Thailand recorded just 7,694 foreign tourists in January this year - the highest number of monthly tourist arrivals so far since the Covid-19 pandemic hit Thailand in 2020.

Based on that 99.78% drop they'll be lucky to hit 100,000 at this rate if they yoyo again

[ThailandRyan]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

Thailand recorded just 7,694 foreign tourists in January this year - the highest number of monthly tourist arrivals so far since the Covid-19 pandemic hit Thailand in 2020.

But were they all truly Tourists who left after a few weeks or are they long term stay expats or people who returned for a job.  Needs to be a breakdown of the actual categories of Visas they came on in order to get a true accounting.

 

The OP Title says Hopeful, but I would venture to say that it is more of a wish and praying it returns to some type of a tourism based economy that can put people back to work in those cottage industries.   Anything is possible, but not happening until the world is either vaccinated or Covid-19 is determined to be a nonstarter and has died out much like a few others have done.

[klauskunkel]

from the article:

"A tuk-tuk driver in Bangkok known as Surasak said all initiatives to welcome foreign tourists could save the tourism industry and local communities."

 

…and there you have it, btw, Surasak is also a TAT-TAT driver.

[internationalism]

the first true tourists have arrived on phuket on 23.2. Only 52 of them. They did quarantine in a luxurious sri panva resort and were golfers.

Anybody before them just came on a tourist visa or exempt, but they came for the other reasons than tourism.

 

there is no chance for an international tourism for many years. Certainly would be careless to allow it before a large proportion of thai are vaccinated.

 

there were 2 attempts to revive or create domestic tourism, with a very limited success. Thousands of hotels abused the scheme by cheating bln of bht, quoting to the government inflated charges. The second phase is on hold. The next one planned to start in may. But it looks like even for 50% of value, thai don't want to spend money, very few can afford any holidays

[connda]

<sniff sniff>  "Smell that?  Smells like someone is smoking something."
Yep.  Thai Hopium. 

[Austrian26]

in 2019 i counted as 8 tourists for my arrivals. ????

[sirineou]

Most people who go on vacation only have limited time before they go back to work, and they want to get away from complications and relax.

  Other than us who have to come  because we have lives here,

Who would travel one day, then spend 10 days 11 nights in  quarantine, then have to budget another day for return, and jump through a whole bunch of hoops , so that they can spend maybe a few days vacationing here?  I certainly would not do it if I only wad three weeks vacation. would you? 

[newnative]

2 hours ago, Austrian26 said:

in 2019 i counted as 8 tourists for my arrivals. ????

     And, if your travel to Thailand was the same in 2010 to 2018, in each of those years you would have also been counted 8 times.  2010, 15 million visitors to Thailand.  2019, 39.8 million.   Some visitors, like you, were frequent; most came just once.  But, far more visitors in 2019 than 2010.