It might have made its name as the ultimate backpacker destination, but Thailand hopes to attract a more well-heeled kind of traveler in the future, Thai Minister of Tourism and Sports Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul said yesterday, as the kingdom announced record arrivals for this year.
The vital tourism industry remains one of the few economic brightspots following a year in which the junta-led Thai government has struggled to revive the nation’s stumbling economy.
By the end of the year more than 29.6 million foreign visitors would have arrived in Thailand, Wattanavrangkul told reporters.
Photo: Reuters
“Our goal is to focus on quality and how to make tourists stay longer and spend more money,” she said, adding that officials would target women, luxury holidaymakers and sports tourism.
This year’s tourist arrivals are a significant jump from the 24.8 million who visited last year — when Thailand was wracked by months of debilitating street protests and a military coup — and 26.5 million in 2013.
“Revenue from the tourism industry accounted for 14.5 percent of our GDP,” Wattanavrangkul said.
After years of largely impressive economic expansion during the 1990s and 2000s, Thailand’s growth has significantly slowed, leading some to dub it the sick man of Southeast Asia.
The nation’s planning agency expects this year’s growth to be between 2.7 and 3.2 percent, an improvement on last year’s negligible expansion, but still one of the poorest performing economies in Southeast Asia.
Some independent economists have suggested growth could be as low as 2.5 percent.
Thai military head Prayuth Chan-ocha seized power in May last year, ousting a democratically elected government that he accused of being corrupt and running costly populist policies.
However, his vow to kickstart growth has largely fallen flat.
The nation’s key agricultural sectors — including rice and rubber — have struggled with falling global prices, curbing the amount of crops produced and taking money out of Thais’ pockets.
The country also remains one of Southeast Asia’s most indebted economies, which has dented consumer confidence.
In a recent note to clients, Capital Economics said Thailand’s tourism industry had weathered a deadly bomb attack in Bangkok in August that appeared to target ethnic Chinese tourists.
“In 2015, we estimate that tourism will contribute 2 percentage points to GDP growth,” Asia economist Krystal Tan wrote.
“Without this boost, the economy would hardly have expanded at all,” Tan wrote.
However, Tan said that there was “almost no chance” of next year matching this year’s figures, citing capacity constraints —particularly at Thailand’s already hard-pressed airports.
Wattanavrangkul said she hopes Thailand could attract 32 million visitors next year.
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