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Thai tourism leader project 18 million tourist arrivals next year

BANGKOK: Thai tourism leaders have projected 18 million foreign tourist arrivals in 2023 despite the absence of visitors from one of its main markets - China.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) said that despite this scenario, Thailand should be able to reach this target, with 72 per cent or around 13 million visitors coming from short-haul markets.

According to a Bangkok Post report, they are expected to contribute nearly 600 billion baht of the overall expected revenue of 971 billion baht.

Thanet Phetsuwan, TAT's deputy governor of marketing for Asia and South Pacific, said this was based on promising signs from the Asian and South Pacific markets for the last two months this year, with 15,778 flights and 2.87 million seats confirmed.

He said leading markets such as India and Malaysia have already secured flight load factors of 85 per cent and 68 per cent, respectively. Vietnam is the fastest growing market in terms of flight resumption at 89 per cent of pre-Covid capacity.

As of Oct 30, tourists from Southeast Asia, South Asia and South Pacific totalled 4.1 million this year, accounting for 54 per cent of total visitors. Tourists from the recently reopened East Asian markets numbered about 831,000, representing 11 per cent of the total.

Thanet said that despite travel restrictions, the number of Chinese visitors totalled almost 192,000 as business visitors and students were allowed to take outbound trips.

While China remains an important market for tourism, Thailand should not count on it or make early predictions on the matter, he said.

"For China, if the zero-Covid policy is prolonged until next year, we might see only a gradual resumption of visitors from certain groups, similar to this year."

He said the TAT had to look at other potential markets such as India to achieve the target.

India is an established market and there will be a more aggressive approach to attract tourists from second-tier cities, such as Lucknow, Ahmedabad and Jaipur, he added.

Thanet also expected competition to intensify next year as all the top destinations have fully reopened, with Japan being the strongest contender due to considerable pent-up demand.

"Developed countries with strong infrastructure, such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, will have an advantage in attracting tourists as they can resume faster," he said.

Meanwhile, Thailand's Tourism and Sports Ministry had set a target of 40 billion baht in revenue from sports tourism next year.

According to a Bangkok Post report, the ministry was also promoting Muay Thai as part of the country's soft power.

Tourism and Sports Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said the ministry was working on a plan to integrate tourism and sports by hosting sports events, such as the Amazing Thailand World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Chiang Mai later this month.

He pointed out that the MotoGP Thailand Grand Prix last month generated up to 4 billion baht.

By promoting sports events together with tourism, Phiphat said Thailand could gain up to 40 billion baht in 2023 as there are other international events taking place next year, such as Bangkok-Chonburi 2023 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games.

Meanwhile, it was reported that several Southeast Asian countries have fulfilled their target of foreign tourist numbers for 2022, although Vietnam lags far behind its goal.

In late August, Malaysia announced that it had already fulfilled its target of 4.5 million international visitors for the year and was now aiming at a new target of 9.2 million visitors.

Singapore, which expects to receive between four and six million international visitors in 2022, had already seen the number reach 3.74 million as of September.

According to a Vn Express news report, Vietnam has received over 2.35 million foreign visitors in the first 10 months of the year, less than half of this year's five million target.

Tourism industry leaders in the country fear the country may not be able to achieve its goal due to global factors such as inflation and the conflict in Ukraine.

Vietnam, which reopened its borders in March, has also not resumed issuing the three-month multiple-entry visas.

Pham Ha, CEO of Lux Group, which specialises in organising luxury cruise tours, said it would be difficult for the tourism industry to reach the five million target this year with visa policies remaining a bottleneck.

Ha said his company had lost many foreign tourists due to visa issues since the reopening.

Apart from granting visa exemption to 24 tourism markets for stays of up to 30 days, Vietnam now only issues a one-month single-entry e-visa to visitors from other countries.

Some foreign tourists told the VnExpress that they would not return to Vietnam until the country resumes its three-month multi-entry visa that it had before the pandemic.

A senior government official said Vietnam has earned revenues of US$16.5 billion from tourism since the reopening. The tourism industry hopes revenues would reach US$17.5 billion this year.

In the pre-pandemic year 2019, Vietnam had received a record 18 million foreign visitors and earned revenues of VND750 trillion (US$30 billion).

The country has also been doing well in the domestic tourism market with over 86 million local tourists recorded this year, exceeding 2019 figures.

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