More than 60 percent of Thailand’s 14 million tourists in 2008 were repeat visitors- a loyalty factor that has helped the country’s tourism sector to ride out economic and political storms more successfully than other countries that essentially compete for these same tourists.
This loyalty was sorely tested during May’s Bangkok political showdown, and will continue to be tested throughout 2010, according to Santi Chudintra, director of the Americas Market Division at the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).
Chudintra was encouraged by one set of numbers released by Tourism Authority of Thailand.
International passengers arriving at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport fell by an average of 20 percent compared to arrivals in May 2009.
However, the number of international passengers arriving at Phuket International Airport, the country’s only other international airport, rose by 61.15 percent during May 2010, the height of the demonstrations.
“I think this shows pretty clearly a strong desire to work around the inconvenience, and an understanding of how isolated the troubles in Bangkok actually were,†Chudinatra said.
