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6 Mar, 2025

Another bad month for Thai tourism as arrivals drop 15.9% in February

Bangkok – Visitor arrivals to Thailand fell precipitously across the board to 3,119,445 in February 2025, a cumulative 15.9% decline over January 2025. Of the 91 source-markets covered by the Ministry of Tourism and Sports in the official statistics, declines were reported in arrivals from 73 countries and territories, including all the major generators such as China, India, Russia, all the ASEAN countries, and Europe.

The scale of the decline does not become apparent in the official analysis of the statistics, which compare arrivals in February 2025 to February 2024. That shows a 6.95% year-on-year decline. The real trend shows when the numbers are stacked by month since January 2024, and then examined in detail by source-markets.

To put that into a broader comparative context, in 2024, February was the second best performing month, with visitor arrivals of 3,352,302, UP 10.4% over January 2024 and just a little lower than the 3,627,441 arrivals in December 2024, the peak performing month. Total arrivals in 2024 were 35,545,714, well below the 39,916,251 arrivals in pre-Covid 2019.

The February 2025 decline is being largely attributed to the fall in arrivals from China after the extensive news reports of security fears, the cancellation of a concert by a popular Chinese performer and Chinese-operated scam-centers in the border regions with Myanmar.

However, that is only the tip of the iceberg. The fact that declines have been reported from all the long-, medium- and short-haul markets, as well as overland border crossing countries, indicates a deeper malaise.

My personal analysis attributes the decline to the rise in competition, especially strong marketing campaigns and visa-facilitation actions by many other emerging new destinations, such as Vietnam and Sri Lanka. I also think there is element of “Thailand Fatigue” setting in as a result of overexposure to an ageing tourism destination now struggling to put old wine in a new bottle.

This year will mark the 65th anniversary of the founding of its two main tourism pillars, the Tourism Authority of Thailand and Thai Airways International.

The TAT is targetting 38.31 million visitor arrivals this year. Due to the bad start, even that is unlikely to be met. The first and last quarters of the year are the best performing periods, especially the Chinese New Year period in January.

The United States and Japanese embassies in Thailand issued travel advisories about “terrorism fears” following the deportation of Chinese Uyghurs. The Thai Hotels Association last week sent out a circular to all members to survey the impact of this.

The month of Ramadan in March will see a significant decline in arrivals from the Middle East and Muslim-majority countries. The global geopolitical situation has also deteriorated in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s March 4 speech to Congress, especially the prospects of a trade war and escalating tensions in the Middle East.

The TAT is now banking on another major extravaganza the Thai New Year Maha Songkran Water Festival between 11-15 April. The Thai Cabinet has allocated a 153 million baht budget for this.

On 26 February the Thai Foreign Ministry launched a project called the “Thai Festival: Creative Pulse – The Pulse of Tradition, the Pulse of Tomorrow,” to promote Thai creative industries at the global level. Thai Festivals will be held in 45 cities worldwide this year to promote Thai products, services and innovations to international markets and advance Thailand’s image and status worldwide.

https://www.mfa.go.th/en/content/thai-festival-creative-pulse-en