Make no mistake, things are turning for the better and offering much hope to Thailand, the land of the Buddha and chronic simplicity, if one might put it that way.
So how is that?
Well, here’s what you may not have expected given just how brutal a blow COVID 19 pandemic rendered to most of the world’s touristy places, which, of course, include Thailand.
To elaborate on the above a tad bit, it helps to know tht Thailand actually received more than 2 million foreign tourists in the first half of 2022. That’s just six months of the ongoing year!
How wide might the smiles of those working in realms like aviation, hospitality and tourism be hearing this great piece of news, one wonders?
Now, according to the forecast of the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, the number of tourists is expected to reach 9 million in this year, which doing simple schoolboy math suggests is more than four times the number the country has already evidenced this year.
The above told, here’s what a website that deals with generic news about Thailand had to say with regards to the rising tourism figures (with four months to go in the ongoing 2022):
In its latest estimates, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports predicts that the second half of 2022 will bring more than 7 million travellers to Thailand. The first 6 months nearly hit the 2 million tourist mark, with 1.987 million visitors arriving from abroad from the beginning of January until June 28. Tourism generated around 114 billion baht so far this year with the government predicting a tenfold increase to 1.27 trillion baht by the end of the year.
The ministry expects around 2.7 million travellers in the 3rd quarter and 4.5 million more visitors in the 4th quarter of 2022, reaching a grand total of around 9.32 million tourists for the year. The tourism authorities’ optimistic estimates would make 2022’s total inbound tourists around 25% of the pre-Covid 2019 numbers. The inbound traffic will also have to survive without a similar resurgence of Chinese or Russian travellers.
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Moving on, by and large, the majority of tourists that Thailand receives hail from Malaysia, Singapore, United Kingdom, India and the United States. Which clearly means that the 9 million plus tourists that Thailand is about to experience will likely originate from these nations.
Tourism in cities like Phuket, such a vital touristic hub of Thailand, increased to an extent that the first week of July saw as many as 9,000 fliers landing in the coastal city on an average (daily basis).
Good times are rolling in again for a country whose heartline is tourism itself. And, one wonders, why shouldn’t that be the case?