7 Aug 2025
Glimmer of Hope for Thai Tourism?
Bangkok – This image below shows the trends trajectory for visitor arrivals to Thailand in January-July 2025 compared to the same period of 2024. It has been a decidedly bad first half, thanks to the scam centres, an earthquake, PM2.5 and a host of other external and internal roadbumps.
However, the worst seems to be over. July recorded a 12.4% increase over June. It would have been better had the final week of July not been hit by the Thai-Cambodian conflict.
The out-of-the-blue border conflict has impacted arrivals, albeit minimally. Now that the two countries are smoking the peace pipe, August should experience a rebound.
If the rest of 2025 follows the same trajectory as 2024, the year may end with just under the total arrivals of 35.5 million in 2024.
That will still be well below the 39 million arrivals in pre-Covid 2019, making the once high-flying Thailand one of the few countries yet to make a full recovery from the pandemic.
This chart above covers only the total arrivals for Jan-July. A detailed analysis of the trend for each market and region shows that the rest of the year is unlikely to be a cakewalk.
Industry pundits and analysts tend to focus excessively on the Big Ten mass-markets which generate half-a-million-plus arrivals each. In fact, the future of Thai tourism lies in the performance of the smaller source-markets.
At the Tourism Authority of Thailand’s Strategic Direction 2026 presentation in July, Governor Thapanee Kiatphaibool said Thai tourism industry should be ready for a “Reality Check”.
Having covered multiple crises since 1981, I will venture the “Realty Check” assessment that Thai tourism is repeating the same mistakes it makes after every crisis.
The desperate drive to meet quarterly profit-and-loss targets, repay bank loans and cover payroll and fixed costs does not allow anyone the luxury of time to reflect on the lessons of history.
Which is why history will repeat itself. As it always has.
P.S., I have done a thorough Reality Check analysis of arrival trends from all the 75 source-markets over Jan-July period. If anyone is interested in availing of it, please email me at tin@travel-impact-newswire.com