TAT seeks to reverse tourism deficit with Japan
Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) governor Yuthasak Supasorn acknowledged on Monday that Thailand has incurred a tourism deficit with Japan for the first time but noted that the sluggish Japanese economy and weak yen was affecting people’s decisions to travel abroad.
The low comes as the number of Thai tourists travelling to Japan in the first six months of this year reached 497,700, showing a recovery rate of 73% compared to the 683,595 people during the same period in 2019. By contrast, only 326,347 Japanese tourists visited Thailand.
Also in the first six months of this year, South Korean tourists surpassed Japanese tourists, with more than 757,767 South Koreans travelling to Thailand. This marks a significant recovery and ranks South Korea as the fourth highest market for foreign tourists traveling to Thailand, following Malaysia, China, and Russia.
TAT would be looking into the reasons for the decline and attempting to find ways to stimulate the influx of Japanese tourists to Thailand, Yuthasak added.
Data for 2019 =show that the proportion of Japanese tourists travelling to Thailand accounted for about 10% of all Japanese tourists traveling overseas. However, in 2022, this proportion increased to 12%, indicating a higher interest in Thailand after Covid-19. TAT aims to increase this proportion to 15% in 2026, which would be satisfactory.
The Association of Thai Travel Agents (ATTA), an organisation representing outbound tour operators that take Thai tourists abroad, predicts that this year there will be almost one million Thai tourists travelling to Japan, recovering by almost 80% compared to 2019 when there were 1,319,000 Thai tourists. This accounts for 4.1% of the total number of foreign tourists arriving in Japan, which is 31,880,000 people, ranking sixth after South Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States.
While TAT has set a goal of having at least 500,000 Japanese tourists coming to Thailand this year, they hope to speed up the process by the end of the year.
And while Japanese tourists may not be flying in, they are certainly interested in all things Thai. The recent Amazing Thailand Fest 2023’ in Osaka, held from July 21 to 23 at Abeno Q's Mall in Osaka, Japan, and featuring Thai foods, films, fashion and a demonstration of handwoven Thai silk, saw people queuing all day for tickets.
The event showcased the unique art of Muay Thai with “Muay Thai Mothers” and invited participants to wear Thai traditional costumes for photos. It also included exhibitions on Thai costumes from different eras and cultural performances related to traditional festivals, such as Songkran (Thai New Year) in summer, rice-related traditions in the rainy season, and Loy Krathong festival during winter. All of these activities were designed to entice the Japanese to make travel decisions to visit Thailand in the post-Covid period.
