BANGKOK – Successive months of tourism growth have helped Thailand surpass 39 million arrivals in 2019, a new record that improves on 2018’s 38 million arrivals.
In the first 11 months of 2019, arrivals stood at 35.87 million, a 4.44% rise year-on-year. The growth also generated 1.74 trillion baht in income, a growth of 3.67% from the year before, according to the Tourism and Sports Ministry
The Kingdom is expected to close the year with a total of 39.6 to 39.8 million tourists, Bangkok Post reported.
In the first 11 months of 2019, arrivals stood at 35.87 million, a 4.44% rise year-on-year. The growth also generated 1.74 trillion baht in income, a growth of 3.67% from the year before, according to the Tourism and Sports Ministry.
The record 2019 performance places Thailand’s tourism growth at 4% by volume with 39.7 million arrivals, generating 1.96 trillion in income for the country.
This year, the agency is expecting to attract some 40.8 million tourists, representing a modest 2.5% increase, which will contribute 2.02 trillion baht to the economy, up 3% year-on-year.
The Russian market, one of the most important for Thailand, will be an area of greater focus for the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), which hopes to attract more tourists from new cities such as Vladivostok, Irkutsk, Yekaterinburg, and Novosibirsk via charter flights by 2020, said Srisuda Wanapinyosak, TAT deputy governor for Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas.
In 2019, visitors from Russia totalled 1.47 million, similar to the year before. This is despite predictions that tourism revenue would drop by 1% to 100 billion baht.
Numbers from the Russian market were also predicted to decrease due to the country's economic situation and the strong baht, which led many Russians to choose short-haul destinations like Turkey instead.