Chinese have taken over from Russian visitors as the most numerous to come through the Thai immigration turnstiles at the moment. Nationally, Russian visitors are not even in the top 5 anymore, whilst in Phuket the arrival numbers have dropped off drastically, compared to the influx from December 2022 to February 2023.
Nationally, over the past week, the foreign arrivals were…
• Chinese – 95,581
• Malaysian – 73,810 (many of these are just day or weekend trips for ‘locals’ across the southern border)
• South Korean – 37,754
• Indian – 27,707
• Vietnamese – 25,717
In Phuket, during the month of July…
• Chinese – 74,766
• Russian – 35,521
• Australian – 24,761
• Indian – 17,224
• Hong Kong visitors – 13,817
The current demographics reflect the current problem for Thailand to attract long-haul visitors outside the Asia region. Expensive airfares continue to be the main problem for Thailand to attract its traditional European, UK and US base for tourism.
Meanwhile, Indian tourists have certainly shown their year-long commitment to visiting Thailand.
