Andrew Wood Skal International Councillor in Thailand reports that the latest figures released by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, show that arrivals at the International Airport from January to October 2006 soared +15.97% over last year, to 7.92 million arrivals.
The top 6 countries to visit Thailand Jan-Oct 2006 were:
1. Japan
2. China
3. Korea
4. UK
5. USA
6. Singapore
The top three positions remain unchanged from last year with the largest European market for visitors to Thailand still continuing to be the UK recording 540,401 visitors, an increase of +7.96%.
Sixth place Singapore actually saw arrivals fall by -4.36% over last year, perhaps as a result of fallout from the “Thaksin Effect” and the sale of Shin Telecom to Singaporean company Temasek Holdings in a controversial deal that lead to demonstrations both in Bangkok and overseas.
Russia saw the largest increase of any country, rising to 99,247 arrivals in the first 10 months, a healthy 108% increase over the same period last year.
The southern unrest does not appear to have affected cross border traffic with Malaysia, with arrivals surging +16.35%.
Thailand is becoming more popular not only with Europeans, but also with visitors from the Middle East, who are no longer keen to travel to the USA/UK in great numbers and feel more welcome in Asia, with the arrival figures from the Middle East rising +33.43%, with Saudi Arabia showing an increase of +86.47% and Egypt increasing +48.60%.
Report by The Mole
