Thailand welcomes 9 million foreign tourists in Q1. (Photo: nationthailand.com)Bangkok (VNA) – Thailand welcomed 9,370,297overseas visitors in the first quarter of this year, a 44% jump year onyear, the country’s Tourism and Sports Ministry has reported.
Thesevisitors have generated tourism income of around 454.65 billion THB (12.4billion USD) for Thai entrepreneurs, it added.
Chinawas the top source market for foreign tourists to Thailand, with 1,756,337arrivals, followed by Malaysia (1,168,574), Russia (622,813), the Republic ofKorea (558,873), India (472,952), Germany (315,033), Laos (308,097), the UK(290,486), the US (280,248) and Japan (271,427).
Theministry added that these statistics only include arrivals processed by theImmigration Office, and do not include those who entered Thailand by landthrough border passes.
It said that the main factors contributing to this trend are the permanentvisa waiver deal for Thai and Chinese citizens, and increasing flights toThailand offered by several airlines.
Thegovernment’s visa-free policy was introduced in September last year, beginningwith a 5-month visa exemption for visitors from China and Kazakhstan, followedby India and Taiwan in November. Thailand and China have agreed to waive visarequirements for their citizens permanently from March 1, a policy that cameinto effect almost immediately after the earlier visa-free process expired.
The ministry has set a revenue target for2024 of 3.5 trillion THB, 2.3 trillion THB of which will come from foreignarrivals of about 40 million people. Domestic tourists, meanwhile, willcontribute 1.2 trillion THB from around 200-220 million person-trips.
