Chonburi Surpasses Phuket as Second Most Visited Tourist Spot in Thailand

[webfact]

 

Bangkok is still the most visited city in Thailand as of March 2024, according to statistics from the Ministry of Tourism and Sports. It saw 4,459,579 tourist arrivals, with approximately 50% being from overseas. Hotel occupancy sat at 76.32%.

 

Chonburi, known for its resort city Pattaya, followed closely as the second most visited location with 1,892,712 visitors, nearly half of which were international tourists. The hotel occupancy rate was slightly above Bangkok at 76.69%.

 

Third place went to Kanchanaburi, though its visitor population of 1,185,695 was predominantly local. The province of Phuket was next with 1,171,189 visitors, around 79% were from abroad. Phuket boasts the highest hotel occupancy rate of all the mentioned areas at 86.37%. 

 

Prachuap Khiri Khan, with 979,818 visitors and a hotel occupancy of 72.83%, completed the top five. The least popular location was Amnat Charoen, seeing just 23,207 visitors.

 

Thailand welcomed a total of 29,151,310 visitors in March 2024, up 12.15% compared to last year, contributing around 583.902 billion baht in revenue. Chinese tourists dominated foreign visitor numbers ahead of Malaysians, Russians, South Koreans, and Indians. The ministry remarked on an increase in Chinese visitors who previously ranked second behind Malaysia.

 

Picture courtesy of Siam Focus Time

 

-- 2024-05-06

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[ezzra]

No wonder there as almost every tourist who comes to Thailand ends up in Pattaya, the Mecca of the ultimate

tourism destination in the south east of Asia...

[jacko45k]

Hardly surprising... easy drive from Bangkok where there is a population of 10 million sweltering people. 

[hotchilli]

Amazing how they know these figures right down to the last person.

[Gottfrid]

I just wish they could keep quiet about something. Now Pattaya will face the same faith as Phuket.

[Old Croc]

So, this is all visitors, not just international tourists. 

I wondered how Kan got in there. 

They must work out the numbers by hotel bookings.

[Aussie999]

49 minutes ago, Old Croc said:

So, this is all visitors, not just international tourists. 

I wondered how Kan got in there. 

They must work out the numbers by hotel bookings.

Yeah, Kanchanaburi surprised me, must be local tourists,  as there really isn't much there to attract international tourists, in large numbers.

[Old Croc]

2 minutes ago, Aussie999 said:

Yeah, Kanchanaburi surprised me, must be local tourists,  as there really isn't much there to attract international tourists, in large numbers.

Yes, the numbers for places like Kan and Patts are mainly Bangkok residents heading out of the city for the weekend, the beach or Songkran. 

Phuket's domestic tourism figures are probably down because of airfare increases. Their higher hotel occupancy rates no doubt comes from international tourism.

 

[Tubulat]

Not really something to be proud of.

[khunjeff]

More visitors to Kanchanaburi than to Phuket? That's just extremely hard to believe, given that Kanchanaburi probably has 1/10 the number of hotel rooms, and is visited mainly on weekends - but these are government statistics, so they must be true 😄

[ChrisY1]

29 million visitors in March alone? What?? that's almost 50% of the population....and in Cha Am it's not at all busy with foreign tourists....

[jchfriis]

7 minutes ago, ChrisY1 said:

29 million visitors in March alone? What?? that's almost 50% of the population....and in Cha Am it's not at all busy with foreign tourists....

It seems to me Aseannow.com reporting gets worse every day.

[jchfriis]

And they don’t link to the source anymore.

[prakhonchai nick]

Chonburi is not just Pattaya. Very many Thais from Bangkok visit Bang Saen at weekends

[kwilco]

It seems they are talking about provinces.

Although last March in Pattaya it was crammed

[sandyf]

4 hours ago, jchfriis said:

And they don’t link to the source anymore.

Why would Thaiger quote itself as the source?