THE TOURISM Authority of Thailand (TAT) is now eyeing 24.5 million arrivals for 2013, having surpassed the 21 million mark in tourist arrivals on December 28.
Presiding over a recent ceremony to welcome the 21st million arrival at Suvarnabhumi airport, Suraphon Svetasreni, TAT governor, said: “We registered a 15 per cent increase in arrivals over 2011 and we are confident of generating at least 965,000 million baht (US$31.6 billion) for the country, a healthy 24 per cent rise over last year. Our statistics showed that Thailand welcomed 19.8 million international tourists from January to November (in 2012), which was an increase of 13.6 per cent.
“The top 10 countries that sent tourists to Thailand were China, Malaysia, Japan, Russia, South Korea, India, Laos, Australia, the UK and Singapore. The main growth markets are from Asia,” he revealed.
“Both Suvarnabhumi Airport and Phuket International Airport showed a good increase in the first half of December of 35 per cent and 47 per cent respectively. These figures bolster our confidence in achieving 22 million arrivals very soon.”
For 2013, TAT expects international arrivals to hit 24.5 million (11 per cent increase) and revenue generated to reach 1.2 trillion baht (19 per cent increase).
