STATISTICAL UPDATE OF THAI TOURISM SITUATION 2006The Thai tourism industry is projected to end the year with a total of 13.8 million international visitor arrivals in 2006. Revenue earnings from tourism are now projected at 486 billion baht.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has targeted 14.8 million international visitor arrivals in 2007 with estimated target revenues of 547.5 billion baht.
The above figures are preliminary estimates. Exact totals for 2006 are not immediately available. Thailand has a total of 28 international checkpoints nationwide, and it takes time to compile all the information from the embarkation/disembarkation cards.
However, the latest complete figures are available for the nine-month period January-September 2006. They provide a reasonably good indication of trends. During this period, international visitor arrivals to Thailand totalled 10,092,740, up 23.29% over the same period of 2005.
ASEAN
ASEAN countries contribute about one-fourth of our total visitor arrivals. In January – September 2006, arrivals from ASEAN countries to Thailand grew 16.60% to 2,461,310.
Although the traditionally strong market of Malaysia topped the list with 1,185,949 arrivals, the real story is the strong growth coming from new markets in the neighbouring countries of the Greater Mekong Subregion. Vietnam showed an increase of 33.63%, Lao PDR up 29.16%, and Cambodia up 10.5%. Singapore was +6.54% to 480,335.
EAST ASIA
International visitor arrivals from East Asia rose by 23.54% to 5,694,169 in January-September 2006. Markets that have shown good growth include Korea +41.52%, China +36.93%, Hong Kong +33.85%, and Taiwan +26.36%.
EUROPE
International visitor arrivals from Europe rose by 24.66% to 2,423,498 during January-September 2003. Russia was the outstanding market with a growth of 97.45% during this period. Other main markets like the UK were up +10.40%, Germany +21.04%, Sweden +46.06%, Norway +33.11%, and Finland +30.39%.
THE AMERICAS
The market was up during January - September 2006 by 12% to 659,981 with the U.S. market up by 9.74% and Canada 18.77%.
SOUTH ASIA
Visitor arrivals from South Asia market totalled 476,320 during January-September 2006, up 18.53% over the same period of 2005. Sri Lanka, the second largest source of arrivals in this region rose by 23.88%. India, the main source of arrivals from South Asia was up 23.37%.
OCEANIA
Visitor arrivals from Oceania were up to 28.15% to 459,985. Australia, the main source of this market was up 30.77% to 386,381.
MIDDLE EAST
The Middle East market performed well, resulting in a 36.25% rise in arrivals to 301,710 during January-September 2006. Arrivals from the UAE rebounded strongly, up by 40.51%, while arrivals from Saudi Arabia rose by 90.98% and Egypt 53.71%. The Middle East market is important to Thailand because the visitors are high spenders.
AFRICA
Arrivals from Africa were up 24.70% to 77,077.
In another strong indication of a good year for Thai tourism, the Airports of Thailand Public Limited Company, which manages all the international airports in the country, reported that passenger movements (embarked, disembarked, and transit) at Bangkok International airport totalled 42,628,920 in all of 2006, up 9.35% over 2005. | 
