Tourist arrivals in Thailand surge 43% to 3.1 million in October

[snoop1130]

Tourists arrived at Suvarnabhumi airport on October 30th, 2022 / photo from sun_horng Tiktok

 

More than 3.1 million foreign tourists arrived in Thailand in October, an increase of 43.55% over September, said Transport Minister Saksayam Chidchob today (Wednesday).

 

Arrivals by air accounted for 96.36% of all arrivals. 2.2 million (75%) arrived at Suvarnabhumi international airport, followed by 400,000 at Don Mueang Airport.

 

October 1st saw Thailand officially enter a post-pandemic period, accompanied by the end of three years of COVID-19 travel restrictions, to which the spike in tourist arrivals is being attributed.

 

Full Story: https://www.thaipbsworld.com/tourist-arrivals-in-thailand-surge-43-to-3-1-million-in-october/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2022-11-02

 

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[internationalism]

that means that in the rest 9 months this year there were 4mln travellers (in another news a few days ago there were 7mln total).

Those who entered in october are not necessarily tourists. October is still rainy season (it just officially ended the last weekend, lasted 2 weeks later then yearly average). Those are rather travellers of different sorts, who were postponing travel in earlier months.

 

[Eleftheros]

They don't have their figures straight.

 

The Ministry of Tourism and Sports officially reported 1,309,115 foreign arrivals in September, so a 3.1 million figure for October would be a more than 120% increase.

 

Like everything in Thailand, this can be explained: Either the Transport Ministry is hopelessly wrong, or the MOTS is hopelessly wrong, or both of them are hopelessly wrong.

[Don Chance]

weed, weed, weed....

[Maha Sarakham]

My wife has noted a sharp increase in the number of Mia farang's living abroad returning home after all the covid entry restrictions were dropped.

 

Gonna be a busy high season this year I suspect, good for the businesses in Thailand.

[Pattaya Spotter]

That figure equates to a 12 month figure of over 36M tourists...close to the pre-pandemic rate of 39M visitors. I'm pretty skeptical of the figures considering the complete lack of Chinese tourists, few Russians, and the economic weakness in Europe.

[Mac Mickmanus]

Are the amount of flights to Thailand back to pre Covid amounts ?

Have airlines reinstated all their flights ?

[darksidedog]

Thailand has a way of pulling numbers from anywhere and lobbing them out to prove their "specialness."

For the Thais who depend on tourism for their income, I am happy to see an upswing, though I have serious doubts that all of those arrivals were actually tourists.

It is improving. You can only hope the early arrivals don't get fleeced rotten, as was common behaviour before, so the trend can continue in a positive manner.

[internationalism]

6 minutes ago, Maha Sarakham said:

My wife has noted a sharp increase in the number of Mia farang's living abroad returning home after all the covid entry restrictions were dropped.

 

Gonna be a busy high season this year I suspect, good for the businesses in Thailand.

but they are holding thai passport. They had chance to come back since sandbox 1.06.21 and certainly easier since test&go from 1.11.21. From June not any restrictions for vaccinated.

 

[Maha Sarakham]

Just now, internationalism said:

but they are holding thai passport. They had chance to come back since sandbox 1.06.21 and certainly easier since test&go from 1.11.21. From June not any restrictions for vaccinated.

That's correct, but for their husbands that likely did not have Thai passports, it provided an undesirable complexity to entry.  It's all gone now and winter is coming in their home countries, I suspect Suvarnabhumi will pick up quite a bit of entry traffic in the next few months.  It already has begun.  In my opinion, coming this year before the Chinese are allowed back will be the best time to do so, the exchange rate is also excellent at the moment.

[MrJ2U]

I know they count people transferring planes.  

 

It's hard to know how many people are actually tourists entering Thailand for holidays and spending money. 

[internationalism]

14 minutes ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

Are the amount of flights to Thailand back to pre Covid amounts ?

Have airlines reinstated all their flights ?

I don't know details, but probably less than half of pre-covid. 

probably very few from china. British Airlines not flying till spring 2023.

But flights are pretty full.

At the beginning of this year Emirates were doing some 35% of traffic to thailand. So difficult for newcomers to enter market

 

[josephbloggs]

1 hour ago, MrJ2U said:

I know they count people transferring planes.  

 

It's hard to know how many people are actually tourists entering Thailand for holidays and spending money. 

Ok, brilliant, finally someone who has a source for what I always thought was a TVF myth!  My lucky day as I have always wanted to know. 

 

So tell me how you know they count transit passengers who don't even pass through immigration.  

[BritScot]

9 hours ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

Are the amount of flights to Thailand back to pre Covid amounts ?

Have airlines reinstated all their flights ?

I must be far poorer than I thought as nearly £6,000 +++ for my family of 2 adults and 2 children was a price my wife wouldn't pay and she is desperate to see her family. We are travelling in March at 1/2 that and even £3,600 and that's far more than it used to be. 

So I think the answer is NO!

[IAMHERE]

10 hours ago, Don Chance said:

weed, weed, weed....

Well, in a way, it does make the numbers balance somewhat. Balancier ?

[mikebell]

10 hours ago, Mac Mickmanus said:

Are the amount of flights to Thailand back to pre Covid amounts ?

Have airlines reinstated all their flights ?

BA haven't.

[Social Media]

 

[hotchilli]

13 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

More than 3.1 million foreign tourists arrived in Thailand in October, an increase of 43.55% over September, said Transport Minister Saksayam Chidchob today (Wednesday).

No doubt every man, women, child and dog counted in... transiting and business.

[RafPinto]

99% of them, single men.

[josephbloggs]

2 hours ago, Black Ops said:

 

That looks deeply unpleasant.  It also looks like Heathrow when I arrived a couple of months ago - took me over an hour and a half to get through, and that's as a British citizen!   Really horrible end to what had been a pleasant journey.  I also got told off for taking pictures of the queue.

I've been in and out of Bangkok several times in the last few weeks and never seen a queue.  Going out to Singapore and back next week so will see if it is fixed (normally they fix it pretty quickly).

 

[kinyara]

4 hours ago, hotchilli said:

No doubt every man, women, child and dog counted in... transiting and business.

Exactly that is the explanation, he is the Minister for Transport so will be quoting the entire number of airport traffic supplied by AOT.  The actual tourist statistics are supplied by the Ministry of Sports and Tourism at the end of the following month after they have analysed the visa status of arrivals from the immigration system. 2 entirely different numbers. For the number to be that high I suspect as mentioned there are a significant number of transit passengers being included.

 

Numbers are improving but not by that much.

[MrJ2U]

15 hours ago, josephbloggs said:

Ok, brilliant, finally someone who has a source for what I always thought was a TVF myth!  My lucky day as I have always wanted to know. 

 

So tell me how you know they count transit passengers who don't even pass through immigration.  

They also count people on border runs.

 

It's a known fact. 

[josephbloggs]

8 minutes ago, MrJ2U said:

They also count people on border runs.

 

It's a known fact. 

It's a known fact only by certain posters here.  No one has ever ever posted any evidence, a quote, a story - nothing - to support the claim.  

Border runs I can see as they will be re-entering on a tourist stamp so no other way to classify then, but people on transits who aren't entering the country?  I call TVF myth.

Just saying "it's a known fact" does not make it one.   Happy to be proven wrong if someone can point to a shred of evidence.

[kinyara]

22 minutes ago, josephbloggs said:

It's a known fact only by certain posters here.  No one has ever ever posted any evidence, a quote, a story - nothing - to support the claim.  

Border runs I can see as they will be re-entering on a tourist stamp so no other way to classify then, but people on transits who aren't entering the country?  I call TVF myth.

Just saying "it's a known fact" does not make it one.   Happy to be proven wrong if someone can point to a shred of evidence.

Well on Tuesday in response to the queues at immigration a Police Chief spokesman was quoted as saying they were handling 45,000-50,000 arrivals through Suvarnabunmi immigration a day now, which is significantly less than the 2.2 million quoted by the Transport Minister in the article. 3.1 million tourists is more than they got in October 2019 and that included over 1 million Chinese and Russians. The previous month's official foreign tourist arrivals was 1.3 million which was only 45% of 2019's numbers. He has to be talking total volume of passengers landing and not foreign tourists arriving.

[MrJ2U]

3 hours ago, josephbloggs said:

It's a known fact only by certain posters here.  No one has ever ever posted any evidence, a quote, a story - nothing - to support the claim.  

Border runs I can see as they will be re-entering on a tourist stamp so no other way to classify then, but people on transits who aren't entering the country?  I call TVF myth.

Just saying "it's a known fact" does not make it one.   Happy to be proven wrong if someone can point to a shred of evidence.

Stick with the figures at TAT.

 

 

You have a lot to learn about Thailand. 

[josephbloggs]

8 minutes ago, MrJ2U said:

Stick with the figures at TAT.

 

 

You have a lot to learn about Thailand. 

I'm fine thanks, lived and worked here for 27 years, I know plenty.  I just prefer to think for myself and not jump on urban myths.

[MrJ2U]

8 minutes ago, josephbloggs said:

I'm fine thanks, lived and worked here for 27 years, I know plenty.  I just prefer to think for myself and not jump on urban myths.

Sounds good.

 

Anyways there's definitely an uptick to tourism.

 

Enjoy your weekend. 

[MrJ2U]

8 hours ago, RafPinto said:

99% of them, single men.

Can't blame them.

 

 

[Sparktrader]

8 hours ago, RafPinto said:

99% of them, single men.

Not on planes. 50/50 men and women

[Sparktrader]

Maybe the malays on buses are 90% men