Thailand to welcome 36 million foreign tourists in 2024

[Sydebolle]

Does this also include unwanted nationalities, this month apparently mostly Swiss and German? 

[sambum]

Do we really need to be told THREE times in as many sentences that " Kasikorn Research predicts 36 million foreign arrivals,..."?

 

And I suppose it is only to be expected that as per usual, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports (TAT) come up with a figure that is 4 million higher! 😁

 

[newnative]

26 minutes ago, sambum said:

Do we really need to be told THREE times in as many sentences that " Kasikorn Research predicts 36 million foreign arrivals,..."?

 

And I suppose it is only to be expected that as per usual, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports (TAT) come up with a figure that is 4 million higher! 😁

 

Apparently being told THREE times was not enough as a previous poster thought the 36 million prediction came from TAT and not Kasikorn.

[Gottfrid]

3 hours ago, Jack Hammer said:

You quote,” The tourism sector is built around so much more, but we will make it easy an estimate that every tourist use an average of 10 000 baht in Thailand, which opposite to the before high number is a very low amount.” 
Although you don’t quote a time period  a tourist would spend more than 10,000 Baht even on a  seven day holiday.  Why bother coming to Thailand with only ฿10,000 in your pocket

Did you even bother to read what I quoted? The 10k baht, is just a low estimate per tourist and year, to make the poster I quoted understand that he was way, way, way and way out of the reality surfing on pink clouds when he posted that the foreigners that stay here long time are more important than the tourists when it comes to economy.

I have never said that there is a meaning coming to Thailand with only 10k baht. I just made a quick test and posted it to make it clear that tourism was the bigger and more important part than the foreigners staying in Thailand. I know the number is much higher regarding spending amount per tourist and year. However, that will only make my post more right.

 

[RichardColeman]

I have absolutely no idea if they will reach this target, but one thing I will say is that if they do want to achieve this figure they seriously need to sort out the immigration officials checking you into the country at entry immigration. It took me 10 minutes to get through last week, even though I have a retirement stamp until the end of May.

 

The guy was totally confused, started rubbing his forehead, counting on his fingers, then he got the calculator out and then promptly stamped me valid stay until MAY 25 ! An entire year after I was valid for. I gave it back to him and pointed again at the date on my stamp and told him it was wrong, more forehead rubbing, more finger counting , more calculator. The crowd behind me were getting annoyed, you could see the frustration they all had after their own 12 hour flights ! So, May 2025 scrubbed out, and new correct date added.

 

I am not saying the guy was either thick or an idiot, it could well have been a training issue, but if this is the sort of quality of officers, then the people will be lining up back to their planes at 40 million !

 

[DonniePeverley]

What point is too much tourism? 60 million? 100 million? Without the improvement in infrustructure it is a ridiculous high number.

 

Thailand has implemented some very heavy investment in suspending visa fees for Indians and Chinese. If you look at the volume it could be in the billions. 

 

The panic to get more Chinese back, and invest billions was short sighted. Chinese tourism was slow all over the world last year, and has only started to resume normally towards the end of the year. There was simply no need for Thailand to stop the visa fees. 

 

Then allowing Russians to stay longer term, and now wanting more territories to come. 

 

Then in turn they have just let millions of indian tourists too.

 

How do you eventually apply handbreaks when tourism gets out of control ?

 

The country has all these issues - inequality, horrific air pollution, crime, corruption but the leadership just seems occupied with tourism and turning Thailand into a pure a tourist state. 

 

Phuket is already seeing complaints from locals and i predict other provinces will soon start complaining. They've started to complain in Japan too and authorities have had to put up curbs. 

 

Numbers will continue to go up, especially in my opinion they have waived the indian entry programme. 

[still kicking]

2 minutes ago, DonniePeverley said:

What point is too much tourism? 60 million? 100 million? Without the improvement in infrustructure it is a ridiculous high number.

 

Thailand has implemented some very heavy investment in suspending visa fees for Indians and Chinese. If you look at the volume it could be in the billions. 

 

The panic to get more Chinese back, and invest billions was short sighted. Chinese tourism was slow all over the world last year, and has only started to resume normally towards the end of the year. There was simply no need for Thailand to stop the visa fees. 

 

Then allowing Russians to stay longer term, and now wanting more territories to come. 

 

Then in turn they have just let millions of indian tourists too.

 

How do you eventually apply handbreaks when tourism gets out of control ?

 

The country has all these issues - inequality, horrific air pollution, crime, corruption but the leadership just seems occupied with tourism and turning Thailand into a pure a tourist state. 

 

Phuket is already seeing complaints from locals and i predict other provinces will soon start complaining. They've started to complain in Japan too and authorities have had to put up curbs. 

 

Numbers will continue to go up, especially in my opinion they have waived the indian entry programme. 

Never mind half of them get send back home for not following the rules.

[DonniePeverley]

Just now, still kicking said:

Never mind half of them get send back home for not following the rules.

 

You have TWO COUNTRIES with in excess of a billion people each. And at a whim and panic, you waive all the fees and entry barriers to let in a free for all. I don't even recall a debate, it was just announced. 

 

Simply no way they will put the fees and visas back for Chinese visitors now. 

[Deserted]

Is this just a forecast? Not the first we've heard. How many this year so far?

[DonniePeverley]

5 minutes ago, Deserted said:

Is this just a forecast? Not the first we've heard. How many this year so far?

 

Based on the figures for the first two months, and projections for the year ahead (hotel bookings, flights, etc). It will easily hit 40 million - if not more. 

 

You can see it at the airport, provinces the country is VERY busy. 

[Stargeezr]

I found Thailand to be too hot from the last week of February until I left March 13th.

My next trip will be in the November to early February period, when some cooler temperature should exist.

  The food is still great, and prices for most places to stay were not much more expensive than they were

just before the COVID hit. Good Luck with the hot season you hearty expats, and tourists.

[BayArea]

Improving economy???? Every other day, a new article comes out talking about how the stalemate economy is going nowhere and jet setter Sretta flying around the world begging for investments to kick start the slump Thailand is in.

[jacko45k]

Bring back Covid!

[AverageAussie]

16 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Total and ridiculous nonsense, tourism is down around the world, the economy is in trouble worldwide, Chinese tourism is way down, and there's no way that town it's going to achieve this number. 

 

The second consideration is the quantity over quality only works if you're selling one or two dollar items at a swap meet. 

 

You're wrong - and not just with your grammar & sentence structure.

 

As at the end of 2023, global tourism had recovered about 90% of pre-pandemic levels and 95% of pre-pandemic levels for South Asia (as a region). The only thing that the statistics would concede is that North-East Asia is only back about 50%.

 

 

Source: UN Tourism | World Tourism Organization

[kiwikeith]

21 hours ago, observer90210 said:

Tourists can come or not, but by far, they are not the big spenders. Those who spend the most are the people who own property and stay longer then the regular joe-tourist and his 2 week stay in a beach resort.

At Suvarnabhumi airport yesterday I was almost mowed down several times by Chinese groups carrying signs storming around the airport, many buying bus tickets for Pattaya, had to get my ticket for Huahin and get away from them, had to wait 3 hours for the bus to depart, the food court was push and shove, gave me a headache, but huge numbers at the airport yesterday. 

[AverageAussie]

15 hours ago, sambum said:

 

Going back to pre Covid days, the Government was saying that tourism accounted for a lot less of the GDP (From memory I think they were quoting single figures?) Along comes Covid, and the Government suddenly realises that tourism doesn't just benefit the hoteliers and bar owners - there are a myriad of associated businesses that depend on tourism, and now they are quoting "about 18%"

During those Covid days, a lot of  businesses - especially the small ones - were kept going by the expats living here, as tourism nosedived, so don't undervalue the contribution that expats make to the economy - even if we are "Aliens"!!!  

 

It's easy to get confused. The precise numbers are always going to be an estimate - and not just because they will vary from year to year. The definitions will vary and of course there are different organisations that do the counting & different inputs to compare.

 

For example, the percentage of workforce that is DIRECTLY EMPLOYED by the tourism sector in Thailand can be about half the actual value of GDP output for the sector (and as little as 7% by some organisations). That can happen because of a flow-through effect; a hotel makes $x revenue per annum from its room bookings, a big percentage of that is expended as wages, those employees spend that money on other sectors (food, transport, housing etc) and those sectors will increase their spending. So even if it's only 7% employed - if that sector stops earning (such as during a pandemic) then the flow on effect can multiply the economic impact.

 

Here's a more comprehensive graphical representation of the current economic sectors in Thailand. Variations can be quite stark.

 

Overall though, the Thais are MUCH MORE dependent on the tourism sector than most other economies. Expats & retirees actually morph closer into "local resident" status, insofar as their economic impact. Except of course most are no longer working or directly contributing to output of goods & services.

[kinyara]

TAT's forecast at the start of the year was 35 million - 27 million non-Chinese and 8 million Chinese. Kasikorn's 36 million backs up the original TAT number and seems realistic given the continuing improvement of monthly numbers.

[sambum]

2 hours ago, AverageAussie said:

 

It's easy to get confused. The precise numbers are always going to be an estimate - and not just because they will vary from year to year. The definitions will vary and of course there are different organisations that do the counting & different inputs to compare.

 

For example, the percentage of workforce that is DIRECTLY EMPLOYED by the tourism sector in Thailand can be about half the actual value of GDP output for the sector (and as little as 7% by some organisations). That can happen because of a flow-through effect; a hotel makes $x revenue per annum from its room bookings, a big percentage of that is expended as wages, those employees spend that money on other sectors (food, transport, housing etc) and those sectors will increase their spending. So even if it's only 7% employed - if that sector stops earning (such as during a pandemic) then the flow on effect can multiply the economic impact.

 

Here's a more comprehensive graphical representation of the current economic sectors in Thailand. Variations can be quite stark.

 

Overall though, the Thais are MUCH MORE dependent on the tourism sector than most other economies. Expats & retirees actually morph closer into "local resident" status, insofar as their economic impact. Except of course most are no longer working or directly contributing to output of goods & services.

 

Thank you for your comprehensive breakdown, and I do not dispute your figures, but the point I was making is that as qualified readers of the English language we do not need to be told 3 times in 3 consecutive sentences what the anticipated number of tourists are going to be - according to Kasikorn Research.

 

Also, I was only pointing out that whenever "guesstimates" are made, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports (TAT) can always be depended on to make sure that their figures are way above anybody else's!

[spidermike007]

5 hours ago, AverageAussie said:

 

You're wrong - and not just with your grammar & sentence structure.

 

As at the end of 2023, global tourism had recovered about 90% of pre-pandemic levels and 95% of pre-pandemic levels for South Asia (as a region). The only thing that the statistics would concede is that North-East Asia is only back about 50%.

 

 

Source: UN Tourism | World Tourism Organization

These numbers are likely based on figures that are provided by the Thai government and there's no doubt in my mind that they're counting expats that are coming back and forth, businessmen who are traveling back and forth, and who knows how many other types of arrivals they're counting who are not tourists. There is only one thing that's certain in the numbers that they're publishing, and that is the lack of accuracy. 

[Mike Lister]

7 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

These numbers are likely based on figures that are provided by the Thai government and there's no doubt in my mind that they're counting expats that are coming back and forth, businessmen who are traveling back and forth, and who knows how many other types of arrivals they're counting who are not tourists. There is only one thing that's certain in the numbers that they're publishing, and that is the lack of accuracy. 

As posted previously in this thread:

 

"It should be mentioned that the TAT don’t run around counting heads but get their figures from the Thai Ministry of Sports and Tourism which collate the statistics from the Immigration Department reports".

 

https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/tourism/survey-do-the-tat-invent-their-statistics

 

And if the numbers today include unwanted non-tourist categories, they always have, the way in which people are counted hasn't changed.

[AverageAussie]

1 hour ago, spidermike007 said:

These numbers are likely based on figures that are provided by the Thai government and there's no doubt in my mind that they're counting expats that are coming back and forth, businessmen who are traveling back and forth, and who knows how many other types of arrivals they're counting who are not tourists. There is only one thing that's certain in the numbers that they're publishing, and that is the lack of accuracy. 

 

Even if they were included (and they make up a significant volume of travellers - which I doubt) then as long as there is consistency across jurisdictions, then the trend from 1 year to the next is the same. All these different types of travellers have to go through the same immigration checkpoints and spend money whilst in the Kingdom.

 

And furthermore even if you don't trust the government figures, in this instance the private research company projections are only 10% less.

[DonniePeverley]

There is no doubt the numbers Thailand currently experiencing are VERY HIGH. I've never seen the airports this busy. 

 

However, not just Thailand - but how do they count the numbers? Is it a case of immigration looks at arrivals / departures? Do they then seperate those who live here, and those with long term visa stays, etc ? 

 

Because they also provide seperate numbers for provinces. So how would they could arrivals to eg Phuket ? Would it be flights ? Or say domestic tourism from Bangkok ? 

 

I've never really got a definitive answers. 

[superal]

Have T.A.T. taken into account the expensive cost of long haul flights ? Money is tight throughout Europe and the disposable income for many does not exist . Staying in country or within Europe for most . UK holiday bookings are up .

[Mike Lister]

2 minutes ago, DonniePeverley said:

There is no doubt the numbers Thailand currently experiencing are VERY HIGH. I've never seen the airports this busy. 

 

However, not just Thailand - but how do they count the numbers? Is it a case of immigration looks at arrivals / departures? Do they then seperate those who live here, and those with long term visa stays, etc ? 

 

Because they also provide seperate numbers for provinces. So how would they could arrivals to eg Phuket ? Would it be flights ? Or say domestic tourism from Bangkok ? 

 

I've never really got a definitive answers. 

There's a link to a Thaiger article earlier that mentions the numbers come from Immigration so that would account for the volume of people entering the country, presumably they are classified by visa type.

 

But TAT also has a fairly sophisticated sampling system whereby they collect the same tourist related information, from the same businesses, every month, in total they collect thousands of samples nationwide. If sampling sound s like it's hit and miss, it isn't, it tends to be a very accurate and used to great effect globally to calculate volumes and outcomes.

[jingjai9]

Open Arms vs. Xenophobia

Thailand has high hopes of receiving 36 - 40 millions visitors in the coming year. Some of them will be bad people. People who come to play and then get drunk and have melt downs. A handful will fall off the balcony and there will be some other bad boys and girls who draw the attention of the police.

 
There is a small part of the tourist population that no doubt tacitly believe that since prostitution is so much in the open and road signs and regulations serve as no more than mere suggestions, there is really no need to respect the law in Thailand; therefore, some will be prone to act accordingly when they drive and when they party.

If Thailand is going to extend its open arms even wider - be realistic. You can't have it both ways: More people mean more problems. Don't treat tourists like objects.  You are inviting people here and giving them incentives to come. And it is often forgotten that tourists in general are not cognizant of Thai culture. What can you do about that?

 

Running news stories day after day and week after week about tourists that run amuck seems to broadcast the notion that non Thais are somehow culturally inferior. This may or may not be the intention, but reading the forums on ASEAN.NOW, ii seems to me many of the forum readers interpret the publicity as treating westerners pejoratively.  I do not see how the news stories educate people or serve as a way of improving relationships between tourists and non-Thais.

If Thailand wants these tourists and their money, they are going to have to work for it and that includes being creative.