Thailand welcomes 17.5 million foreign tourists in first half of 2024
More than 17.5 million overseas visitors came to Thailand from January 1 to June 30, a 35% jump year on year, Tourism and Sports Minister Sermsak Pongpanich said on Tuesday.
These 17,501,283 visitors generated tourism income of around 825.54 billion baht, he said.
In first half of this year, China was the top source market for foreign tourists to Thailand, with 3,439,482 arrivals, followed by Malaysia (2,435,960), India (1,040,069), South Korea (934,983), Russia (920,989), Laos (618,782), Taiwan (533,280), the United States (507,251), Vietnam (501,895) and the United Kingdom (485,093).
Sermsak said during the past week (June 24-30) foreign visitors in almost all categories had increased, especially those in the short haul group that went up by around 2% over the previous week, to nearly 500,000 people.
Meanwhile, long haul tourists have increased 6.11% over the previous week to some 170,000 people.
Several factors have contributed to this trend, including the start of summer holidays in Europe, and the organisation of Pride month activities in several locations across Thailand to celebrate the legalisation of same-sex marriage, said Sermsak.
Meanwhile, the visa waiver measure for visitors from China, India, Taiwan and Kazakhstan, along with increasing flights to these countries, have helped boost the ease of travel to Thailand and attracted potential visitors, he added.
The ministry expects the trend to continue this week (July 1-7) due to celebrity-induced tourism, said Sermsak. He was referring to the massive popularity of K-pop artist Lalisa “Lisa” Manoban’s latest music video “Rockstar”, which was shot in Yaowarat, Bangkok’s Chinatown.
The video had attracted over 66 million views on YouTube as of Wednesday and currently tops YouTube trending for music.
The government is aiming for 36.7 million foreign visitors in 2024, inching closer to the record nearly 40 million who visited in 2019 before the pandemic.
