A total of 11.15 million foreign tourists visited Thailand during 2022, a huge increase on the 428,000 figure from 2021. Last year’s total arrivals have also exceeded the 10 million target set by the tourism and sports ministry in the middle of the year, with the top 3 source markets being Malaysia, India, and Singapore (and then Russia leading the way over the last 3 months of 2022).
In December alone, the kingdom welcomed 2.24 million foreign arrivals, a big jump on the 230,497 from the same period in 2021.
According to a report from the National News Bureau of Thailand, tourism officials say this is a good indicator of the sector making a strong recovery. In pre-pandemic days, Thailand welcomed nearly 40 million foreign arrivals in 2019, but tourism in the kingdom was subsequently decimated by nearly 3 years of Covid-19 restrictions.
This year, Thailand has set a target of 25 million foreign tourists. With China having lifted its travel restrictions, tourism officials hope to attract at least 5 million arrivals from China. And, by 2027, the tourism ministry is predicting arrival numbers to reach a staggering 80 million tourists in a single calendar year, double the number of the last full year of tourism before the pandemic in 2019. That arrival prediction would be more than Thailand’s total population.
A budget of 3.95 billion baht has also been allocated to boost both international and domestic tourism in Thailand’s secondary cities.
SOURCE: National News Bureau of Thailand
