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Thailand Welcomes Over 28 Million Tourists in 2025

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tourists-in-thailand.jpg

File photo for reference only

 

Thailand has reported a total of 28,277,276 foreign tourist arrivals between January 1 and November 16, 2025. Despite a 7.18% drop from the same period last year, tourism revenue reached approximately 1.308 trillion baht. The Ministry of Tourism and Sports noted the significance of surpassing 28 million arrivals and highlighted ongoing efforts to boost tourism figures.

 

This year's top sources of tourists were Malaysia (4,058,169), China (3,946,225), and India (2,110,469). Russia and South Korea also contributed significantly with 1,527,800 and 1,339,604 arrivals respectively. The weekly trends from November 10 to 16 showed 689,431 visitors, a slight decline but still averaging 98,490 arrivals per day. Among the short-haul markets, South Korea saw a remarkable 15.98% increase due to winter holidays, elevating it to the fifth most-visited market during that period.

 

Experts have expressed optimism, with Natreeya Taweewong, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, emphasizing the positive tourism impact. The increased tourist spending is seen as a crucial economic booster. Industry stakeholders expect rising trends to continue, supported by public holidays and improved travel conveniences.

 

Looking ahead, tourist arrivals are projected to rise further. Factors such as public holidays in Japan, peak-season travel, and government measures like "Ease of Travelling" are expected to drive this growth. The removal of the TM6 arrival card and increased airline capacity are anticipated to facilitate more seamless travel experiences for visitors, reported The Nation.

 

Key Takeaways

  • Thailand's tourism attracted over 28 million visitors in 2025.
  • Revenue from international tourists exceeded 1.308 trillion baht.
  • Upcoming holidays and travel measures point to further increases.

 

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Dual Pricing in Thai Tourism : Economic Necessity or Hidden Bias?

 

image.png  Adapted by ASEAN Now from The Nation 2025-11-19

 

 

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1 hour ago, snoop1130 said:

tourists-in-thailand.jpg

File photo for reference only

 

Thailand has reported a total of 28,277,276 foreign tourist arrivals between January 1 and November 16, 2025. Despite a 7.18% drop from the same period last year, tourism revenue reached approximately 1.308 trillion baht (...)

 

Hey, big spender(s)... 😆 

 

1.308 trillion / 28,277,276 = 46,256.22 baht.

Does someone actually have to keep track of all these numbers ?

You know its killing TAT that they won't be able to reach 40 million or more by year's end!

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Why are they obsessed with numbers who visit?

 

In western countries they only look at total revenue from visitors But in Thailand the big headline is always the number of visitors. Can anyone spin me some reason as to why this is in Thailand?

 

If Thailand only has 20 million tourists next year but revenue is massive and exceeds this year - will they paint it as a disappointment? Or will they want 40 million tourists but low revenue ?

 

If you have millions of Malaysians crossing into Hat Yai in the South, then go home the same day and spend very little - then what is the point of getting excited by those total visitor numbers?

 

Alternative if you let in visa free countries that have very weak economies per capita GDP  (compared to Thailand) eg, India, Bangladesh etc and let these countries citizens in visa free. They may inflate you numbers up but spend per person will be low. 

 

Furthermore, you then have to equate in allowing in awful cheap tourists, criminals, long term visa schemes - you are then IRONICALLy  essentially turning alot of visitors away.

 

Eg, France is a beautiful country to visit. It's always busy, especially Paris. So it only wants the best tourists to visit, and those who will not be criminals, overstay, or spend much money. So they have visa controls against tourists from India. That is not to say no one from India can come, but they need to get a visa and prove they have financial means to spend some money. France if it deployed the sme visa rules as Thailand would go through the roof with visitors. 

 

Thailand meanwhile lets in anyone. 

 

The decisions made a few years ago by the last administration were a complete disgrace. 

 

Not only this but the raft of long term visas allowing in criminals has hurt hotels too - as these people are invariably moving into airbnb type scenarios. And this in turn then hurts the residential market - who the hell wants to buy a conominium that is overrun with airbnb guests. 

 

CRAZY

 

They should only use SPEND PER CUSTOMER. AND SPEND IN THAILAND IS DOWN. QUALITY TOURISTS ARE HEADING ELSEHWERE. Vietnam makes Indian tourists get a visa. 

7 hours ago, StayinThailand2much said:

 

Hey, big spender(s)... 😆 

 

1.308 trillion / 28,277,276 = 46,256.22 baht.

 

 And you would be  misinterpreting the data with that conclusion. Most of the Malaysian visitors are day trippers. Their spending is much less than that. It means  that other groups are spending much more per capita.

 

 

6 hours ago, Jim Blue said:

Does someone actually have to keep track of all these numbers ?

 

Yes. It is easier to do now that electronic data collection has been added.

42 minutes ago, Patong2021 said:

 And you would be  misinterpreting the data with that conclusion. Most of the Malaysian visitors are day trippers. Their spending is much less than that. It means  that other groups are spending much more per capita.

Wrong. There are 22 direct flights from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok everyday. 

 

If you have taken any of these flights before, you would think that the passengers were mostly from China. But they are not. Most of the passengers are Chinese Malaysians. Go to the Big C Supercenter at Ratchadamri Road and ask the customers there where they are from. Chances are they are either Chinese Malaysians or Chinese Singaporeans. As a Chinese Malaysian myself, I see plenty of fellow Chinese Malaysian tourists in Bangkok. 

1 hour ago, Selatan said:

Wrong. There are 22 direct flights from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok everyday. 

 

If you have taken any of these flights before, you would think that the passengers were mostly from China. But they are not. Most of the passengers are Chinese Malaysians. Go to the Big C Supercenter at Ratchadamri Road and ask the customers there where they are from. Chances are they are either Chinese Malaysians or Chinese Singaporeans. As a Chinese Malaysian myself, I see plenty of fellow Chinese Malaysian tourists in Bangkok. 

Chinese Malaysians do not need to fly in from Malaysia to shop at  Big C.  Malaysia offers similar with its Lotus, Aeon, Ben's Mydin, econosave etc.    Malaysians are mostly short term visitors on average spending 3-5 days in Thailand.  In contrast, Chinese and Indian  visitors stay 7 days on average. Europeans stay longer; Approx 20 days.  with Scandinavians and UK nationals staying the longest  of that group.  The longer short term visitors stay in Thailand, the more they will spend.  The Malaysians for the most part are short term visitors, and their air fare, lodging and dining expenses  will reflect that.  

 

Yes, there are daily flights to KUL from Bangkok. What's your point?  KUL is  Air Asia's hub and it feeds most of lots international connections through KUL. Almost all of the flights are narrow body. Thai only has 2  departures from BKK,  Malaysia airlines has 6 to its KUL hub. Using your logic,  The people who fly between London and Frankfurt (86 departures ), Hong Kong  and Seoul (30)  New York and Toronto (35 departures)  New York and Toronto (77 departures) must really enjoy the shopping.

15 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

The Ministry of Tourism and Sports noted the significance of surpassing 28 million arrivals

Flew in twice this year, am I counted as two people? Many thousands no doubt come in and out multiple times a year. Methinks the books are cooked. 

6 hours ago, Patong2021 said:

 

 And you would be  misinterpreting the data with that conclusion. Most of the Malaysian visitors are day trippers. Their spending is much less than that. It means  that other groups are spending much more per capita.

 

 

 

Yes. It is easier to do now that electronic data collection has been added.

    Correct.  the 4 million Malaysian day trippers spend around 29,000 baht each, bringing down the average.   Which is also why Thailand would like to get the Chinese number back to around its peak of 11 million in 2019--much more revenue per tourist.  

9 minutes ago, daveAustin said:

Flew in twice this year, am I counted as two people? Many thousands no doubt come in and out multiple times a year. Methinks the books are cooked. 

No idea how they do the accounting, do they differentiate between visa types, I'll arrive 14 times this year, will that be counted as 14, 1 or 0 as I'm living here on a non-O? Who knows.

6 hours ago, Selatan said:

Wrong. There are 22 direct flights from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok everyday. 

 

If you have taken any of these flights before, you would think that the passengers were mostly from China. But they are not. Most of the passengers are Chinese Malaysians. Go to the Big C Supercenter at Ratchadamri Road and ask the customers there where they are from. Chances are they are either Chinese Malaysians or Chinese Singaporeans. As a Chinese Malaysian myself, I see plenty of fellow Chinese Malaysian tourists in Bangkok. 

     That may be true but the average Malaysian tourist spending in Thailand is 28,700 baht each, much lower than that of tourists from other countries tracked.  

6 hours ago, Selatan said:

Wrong. There are 22 direct flights from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok everyday. 

 

If you have taken any of these flights before, you would think that the passengers were mostly from China. But they are not. Most of the passengers are Chinese Malaysians. Go to the Big C Supercenter at Ratchadamri Road and ask the customers there where they are from. Chances are they are either Chinese Malaysians or Chinese Singaporeans. As a Chinese Malaysian myself, I see plenty of fellow Chinese Malaysian tourists in Bangkok. 

 

 

Why on earth would Singaporians or Malaysians fly all the way to Bangkok to shop at Big C ROFLMAO 🤣 They have their own supermarkets.

 

Usually Chinese go there, but even they now are getting their own supermarkets who are becoming savy as to what the locals want. 

 

The sheer volume of Malaysians crossing over at Hat Yai is astonishing. 

I have no idea who is going where, when, or how. I'm not an expert on tourism. I'm not directly impacted by tourism. So I won't comment on this topic.

7 hours ago, Patong2021 said:

Chinese Malaysians do not need to fly in from Malaysia to shop at  Big C.  Malaysia offers similar with its Lotus, Aeon, Ben's Mydin, econosave etc.    Malaysians are mostly short term visitors on average spending 3-5 days in Thailand.  In contrast, Chinese and Indian  visitors stay 7 days on average. Europeans stay longer; Approx 20 days.  with Scandinavians and UK nationals staying the longest  of that group.  The longer short term visitors stay in Thailand, the more they will spend.  The Malaysians for the most part are short term visitors, and their air fare, lodging and dining expenses  will reflect that.  

 

Yes, there are daily flights to KUL from Bangkok. What's your point?  KUL is  Air Asia's hub and it feeds most of lots international connections through KUL. Almost all of the flights are narrow body. Thai only has 2  departures from BKK,  Malaysia airlines has 6 to its KUL hub. Using your logic,  The people who fly between London and Frankfurt (86 departures ), Hong Kong  and Seoul (30)  New York and Toronto (35 departures)  New York and Toronto (77 departures) must really enjoy the shopping.

There you go. Can you make up your mind? Are we still mostly day trippers?

2 hours ago, DonniePeverley said:

 

 

Why on earth would Singaporians or Malaysians fly all the way to Bangkok to shop at Big C ROFLMAO 🤣 They have their own supermarkets.

 

Usually Chinese go there, but even they now are getting their own supermarkets who are becoming savy as to what the locals want. 

 

The sheer volume of Malaysians crossing over at Hat Yai is astonishing. 

LOL. Don't you Westerners have the tradition of buying gifts from the places that you visit to be given to relatives, friends and colleagues? Many of us go to Big C in Bangkok on the final day before our flight home to buy uniquely Thai foodstuffs, not things that we could get easily back home. Some of us even use the courier service at the Big C to ship boxes of foodstuffs back to Malaysia.

22 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Thailand has reported a total of 28,277,276 foreign tourist arrivals between January 1 and November 16

 

How many of these were air passengers in transit?

23 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

The Ministry of Tourism and Sports noted the significance of surpassing 28 million arrivals and highlighted ongoing efforts to boost tourism figures.

Far short of projected figures or future aspirations.

3 hours ago, Burma Bill said:

 

How many of these were air passengers in transit?

 

Is Thailand really a hub ?

 

I am not doubting it does have some hub action .... but let's be honest it's not on the same level as Dubai, Doha, etc

 

For those transiting into asian / australia regions the biggest hub is no doubt Singapore. 

Yes numbers are there maybe. 

 

But the spending of tourists has drastically dropped. Maybe due  to costly in the cheating prices of restaurants or transport in popular areas like Pattaya, Phuket and mainly Hua Hin that is a real ripoff for the prices. 

 

As said before, it's not the 10 day millionnaires who come that are the big spenders. It's all those who own property either on freehold condo or leasehold villas who are the big spenders. Even if they do not go out, this segment injects large amounts just if one was to look at the works they do in their property. Thailand is getting it all wrong in not making visa issues much more quick and simple for any property owner in Thailand. A sensible approach would be to have the home owner plainly submit his lease contract or purchase contract of property, and that's it to get say a multiple entry 5 month visa hassle free. 

 

Guess I got counted three times before they closed the border

11 hours ago, Selatan said:

There you go. Can you make up your mind? Are we still mostly day trippers?

The average shows 3-5 days, but day trippers form  a large part of the  visit activity.  This is particularly pronounced in the south where day trips are common.  I don't know what you are trying to prove. I am using  Thai tourism data.  The travel pattern of the Malaysians with Thailand is similar to other regions. Laos-Thailand, Canada-USA, USA-Mexico etc.

4 hours ago, Sigmund said:

Yes numbers are there maybe. 

 

But the spending of tourists has drastically dropped. Maybe due  to costly in the cheating prices of restaurants or transport in popular areas like Pattaya, Phuket and mainly Hua Hin that is a real ripoff for the prices. 

 

As said before, it's not the 10 day millionnaires who come that are the big spenders. It's all those who own property either on freehold condo or leasehold villas who are the big spenders. Even if they do not go out, this segment injects large amounts just if one was to look at the works they do in their property. Thailand is getting it all wrong in not making visa issues much more quick and simple for any property owner in Thailand. A sensible approach would be to have the home owner plainly submit his lease contract or purchase contract of property, and that's it to get say a multiple entry 5 month visa hassle free. 

 

 

You are misinterpreting  the data.  The foreigners who have  freehold condos or leasehold properties, are usually long term residents. They are not tourists. Some may enter on tourist visas, but most are not.  

6 hours ago, Patong2021 said:

The average shows 3-5 days, but day trippers form  a large part of the  visit activity.  This is particularly pronounced in the south where day trips are common.  I don't know what you are trying to prove. I am using  Thai tourism data.  The travel pattern of the Malaysians with Thailand is similar to other regions. Laos-Thailand, Canada-USA, USA-Mexico etc.

Day trippers from Malaysia mostly visit Thai small border towns such as Danok, Betong and Sungai Kolok. The number of visitors to these small towns are not high. And  many of them are petrol, diesel, cooking oil and sugar smugglers, not tourists. I wouldn't be surprised if most of these smugglers don't even go through immigration gates properly.

 

https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2025/09/1274341/smugglers-modify-cars-carry-more-subsidised-petrol-thailand

 

Visitors to Hat Yai would often spend a few days there because they are mostly from Malaysian cities further south such as Penang, Kulim, Taiping, Ipoh, Kampar, Sitiawan or even Kuala Lumpur. After the long drive north, it doesn't make sense for us to only spend a few hours in Hat Yai.

 

Also, many of us Malaysians have been to Thailand many, many times before, so it wouldn't be surprising if we would only spend 3 to 5 days per trip there, around 1 to 3 times per year. Bangkok is the top destination, followed by Phuket, Hat Yai and Chiang Mai.

28 milliion so far.  Japan just passed 35 million. I understand weak Yen and all but overall Japan has been more expensive but still outperforms the Land of Smiles. 

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