Thailand has recovered from several years of instability by welcoming a record number of tourist arrivals in 2012.
The country exceeded its official target of 21m international arrivals last year, welcoming a total of 22.3m visitors, up 16% year-on-year. It also marks an increase of more than 50% from the 14.1m arrivals achieved in 2009, when Bangkok was in the grip of political protests.
Suraphon Svetasreni, Governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), attributed the strong result to the current peace and stability being experienced in the country.
“We are overjoyed to have achieved this result,” said Suraphon. “Last year, the world was generally at peace and there were no major geopolitical, economic, environmental or natural disasters and no health pandemics. Travel and tourism can only flourish worldwide if the underlying conditions that support it remain free of disturbance and disruption. That is one of the most important lessons for the entire industry to learn worldwide,” he added.
The country was also boosted by the rise of intra-regional tourism. East Asian nations contributed more than a fifth (20.8%) of the total arrivals, while five Asia Pacific countries – Malaysia, China, Japan, South Korea and India – each contributed more than one million annual visitor arrivals.
Thailand’s two largest visitor source markets – China (2.7m) and Malaysia (2.5m) – are now generating more than two million annual arrivals each, while ASEAN countries in total are generating in excess of six million arrivals, with strong double-digit growth from Cambodia (+59.7%), Vietnam (+24.4%), Indonesia (+21.0%), Myanmar (+17.4%) and Laos (+6.6%).
The trend of emerging markets in also noticeable in the European arrivals figures. Russia is now Thailand’s the largest European source market, rising 25.0% to 1.3m visitors, overtaking the UK.
The TAT is now hoping to build on the success of the past year, targeting 24.5m arrivals in 2013.
