Tourists enjoy splashing water on Khao San Road in Bangkok on April 1 (Photo: Bangkok Post) Bangkok (VNA) - The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) estimates that about 996,000 foreign tourists will visit the Southeast Asian country between April 26 and May 5, known as the Golden Week holidays in Japan, during which Chinese tourists also prefer to travel overseas.
The estimated number of arrivals is about 29% higher than the statistics from last year, said Chattan Kunjara Na Ayudhya, TAT Deputy Governor for Asia and South Pacific markets.
He said foreign tourists during this period would generate around 32.2 billion THB (870 million USD) for local entrepreneurs, a jump of 35% year-on-year.
Chattan said about 230,000 of the 996,000 will be Chinese, attributing the surge to a visa waiver deal between Thailand and China, which allows their citizens to stay for a maximum of 30 days.
Another factor will be the additional flights to Thailand being offered by various airlines during the May Day holiday, he added.
Online travel platform Agoda, meanwhile, announced that its survey of Japanese tourists found that Thailand is in second place among popular foreign destinations during the Golden Week. The Republic of Korea (RoK) ranked first while Taiwan (China), the US, and Vietnam take third to fifth place, respectively.
According to Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism and Sports, the Songkran Festival, from April 1 to 21, generated a total income of 140.335 billion THB, higher than the ministry’s previous estimate of 132 billion THB.
Over 1.92 million foreign tourists visited Thailand during the festival, up 37.54% against the same period last year.
The top 10 sources of foreign tourist arrivals during the festival were China, Malaysia, India, Russia, the RoK, Laos, the UK, Taiwan (China), the US and Indonesia./.
