Thailand welcomes 26.7m visitors in 2013
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Thailand welcomed a total of 26.7 million international visitors last year, exceeding its target of 26.1m arrivals.
Despite the political unrest that raised its head towards the end of the year, the country still managed to recorded 20% more arrivals than 2012, when it welcomed 22.4m visitors.
“This achievement brings much joy to Thailand and the country’s travel and tourism industry as a whole,” said Thawatchai Arunyik, governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).
“These statistics are invaluable as evidence that despite the challenging factors including the ongoing political demonstrations in Bangkok, Thailand remains a popular and welcoming tourist destination.”
The growth was driven by visitor source markets in the Asia Pacific region. Five Asian countries contributed more than one million visitor arrivals last 2013: China (+68.8% to 4.7m), Malaysia (+17.3% to 3.0m), Japan (+12.0% to 1.53m), South Korea (+11.5% to 1.29m) and India (+3.6% to 1.0m). Meanwhile, Russia was Thailand’s top European source market, contributing 1.7m arrivals – 31.9% more than 2012.
In total, the East Asia region contributed 16.1m arrivals, or 60.2% of the total, while 17.0m international visitors to Thailand arrived in the country through Bangkok’s two airports – Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang.
Thailand is now expecting to welcome more than 28m international visitors in 2014.
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