Tourism numbers in Chiang Mai solid and on the rise
Chiang Mai’s tourism industry is continuing to recover with the average occupation rate of hotels in the province reaching 75% in the first five months of this year, Paisan Sukcharoen, president of Thai Hotels Association (Upper Northern Chapter), said.
Speaking at the general meeting of the association’s members on Thursday, Paisan said that hotels in the northern province recorded a 70% occupation rate from January to March, before the number plummeted to less than 30% in April as Chiang Mai, like other northern provinces, battled smog and high PM 2.5 levels.
As the air pollution improved, Thai and foreign tourists started coming back to Chiang Mai in May, he said, adding that the trend also prompted operators of unregistered small hotels to increase their rooms to eight or more, to meet the legal requirement to register as a small hotel and attract more customers.
Paisan added that currently there are about 600 registered hotels in the province, with about 2,000 more who are yet to be registered.
Paisan said the association will work with tourist attractions in providing training for hotel staff, especially in language and technology skills, to prepare for the increasing number of tourists it expects in the second half of the year.
Suladda Sarutilavan, director of Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT)'s Chiang Mai office, said that in the first five months of this year, Chiang Mai recorded over 4.7 million visitors, of whom 3.08 million were Thais and the rest foreigners.
She added that tourists visiting the northern city usually spend 2-3 days at local hotels, which have a total combined room capacity of over 34,000. Total spending in the five months reached 46.7 billion baht, mostly on accommodation, food, and entertainment.
The TAT estimates that Chiang Mai will secure at least 80 billion baht of tourism revenue this year, approaching the pre-Covid level of 100 billion baht recorded in 2019.
