DRIVEN by a dramatic 93 per cent growth in arrivals from China, Thailand’s visitor arrivals surged to a record 6.8 million in 1Q2013, up 18.9 per cent year-on-year, according to figures from the Ministry of Tourism and Sports.
China’s total of 1.1 million visitor arrivals marks the first time that any country had crossed the one million mark in a three-month span, mainly due to the Chinese New Year in February 2013.
Asian countries comprise the biggest market share at 53.1 per cent with 3.6 million arrivals (+28.5 per cent). Apart from China, the other top source countries were Malaysia (627,759), Japan (408,048) and South Korea (350,529). Within Asia, ASEAN countries generated over 1.5 million arrivals in total.
European visitors showed a good growth rate of 10.3 per cent to 2.1 million. Russia retained its status as the largest source market from Europe with 584,516 arrivals (+26 per cent), followed by Germany with 252,108 arrivals (+12.2 per cent) and the UK with 246,943 arrivals (+2.8 per cent) respectively.
Arrivals from the Americas recorded a growth of 8.7 per cent to 331,070. The main market, the US, increased 8.3 per cent to 227,319, while arrivals from Canada were up 4.6 per cent. Showing considerable promise were Latin American markets such as Brazil (+21.1 per cent) and Argentina (+18.3 per cent).
South Asian arrivals climbed a significant 16 per cent to 313,634, topped by India with 249,350 arrivals (+18.2 per cent),while arrivals from Oceania grew by 6.1 per cent to 250,124 visitors.
All regions posted growth except the Middle East, which saw arrivals decline 1.2 per cent to 139,499, mainly due to a 5.9 per cent dip in arrivals from the UAE to 20,209.
However, some source-markets including Egypt (+28 per cent), Israel (+11.7 per cent) and Kuwait (+11.2 per cent) reported good results.
In 2013, the Tourism Authority of Thailand is targeting 24.1 million arrivals, which will generate a projected tourism income of 1.1 trillion baht (US$37.5 billion).
