Thailand becomes hottest destination for Chinese tourists

Data provided by a travel service platform indicates that air tickets to Bangkok saw the largest number of bookings when compared to other overseas destinations during the three-day May Day holiday.

The Grand Palace in Bangkok

For two consecutive years, Bangkok has replaced London and Paris to become the most frequented tourist destination in the world, according to MasterCard International. In 2016, the city welcomed 194 million tourists from around the world.

Having lots of fun with less money is one travel draw for Chinese tourists holidaying in Thailand. The average person will spend around 3,000 yuan ($473) in the country, which is even cheaper than the cost of some hot Chinese destinations.

Thailand was one of the earliest countries open to Chinese tourists, and it has always been a hot travel destination for Chinese tourists, said a developer of travel itineraries in Southeast Asia.

Thailand is a country you will never tire of visiting, said one travel enthusiast. Moreover, the country offers a visa-on-arrival policy for Chinese tourists, which is more convenient than visa application processes in other countries.

At the beginning of this year, the number of Chinese tourists arriving in Thailand hit 350,000, an increase of 113.8 percent from the previous year, according to statistics. That figure was more than a quarter of the total outbound Chinese tourism during the same period.

In 2017, Chinese tourists brought more than 520 billion baht in revenue to Thailand, becoming the largest contributor to the country’s tourism sector in terms of the number of arrivals and the size of profit, said Pongpanu Svetarundra, Permanent Secretary of Thailand’s Ministry Of Tourism and Sports.