The Thai Tourism Authority has forecast that 370,000 foreign tourists will visit Thailand during the New Year’s festival between December 31-January 3, generating revenue estimated at 5.5 billion baht.
TAT governor Yutthasak Supasorn said that the forecast of tourist arrivals and their estimated spendings are based on bookings of 65 chartered flights with over 16,300 seats.
The 65 chartered flights are divided into 39 flights to Bangkok, 23 flights to Phuket and three flights to Chiang Mai from 11 countries.
Bookings from China, Russia and Japan increased by three percent.
On top of that, there are additional 25 flights per week which were launched by foreign airlines since December 1. These include Thai Smile’s three return flights on Laknao-Bangkok route launched since Dec 1 and Thai Air Asia’s 7 flights per week on Don Meuang-Calcutta route launched since Dec 16.
Mr Yutthasak disclosed that markets which have good potential for bookings are Germany, Japan, Britain and Russia while bookings for markets in China, Hong Kong and India have dropped.
However, he noted that Chinese tourists might delay their visits to Thailand until Chinese New Year in mid-January.
Regarding domestic market, he said flights to provinces where the weather is cold were fully booked until February.
