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As incoming Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin searches for methods to increase tourism earnings to roughly $100 billion next year, Thailand is likely to relax visa requirements for Chinese and Indian tourists and enable longer stays for visitors from all countries.
Expensive Application process served as hurdle
According to the premier, the application process for Chinese visas, the largest group of visitors prior to the pandemic, is expensive and time-consuming, which has had a negative impact on the number of visitors this year. A 15-day visa on arrival costs 2,000 baht ($57) for visitors from India.
According to Srettha, he wants to see an increase in the number of nations that do not require visas as well as a ceiling on stays of 15 or 30 days for many nationalities.
Aim to speed up Immigration checks
On Monday, Srettha met with officials from Airports of Thailand and a number of airlines to explore solutions with the short-term goal of bringing in more tourists from abroad during the fourth quarter, which is normally the busiest travel period. Srettha announced on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, that the airport operator has committed to eliminate bottlenecks in order to increase flight capacity by 20% and discover solutions to speed up immigration checks.
Tourism accounts for 12% of GDP
The travel sector is “the best short-term economic stimulus,” according to Srettha, and the new government wants to increase foreign visitor revenue to 3.3 trillion baht next year. According to figures from the Bank of Thailand, tourism contributes almost 12% to the country’s GDP and accounts for almost 5% of all jobs.
The elimination of the application price, according to Thaneth Tantipiriyakij, president of the Phuket Tourism Association, would be preferable to granting visa exemptions to travellers from China and India. At a weekend gathering of representatives from the travel industry in the island province, that message was delivered to the prime minister.
Visa fee waivers are a “quick win” for the tourism industry, according to Thaneth, who also noted that through July, Phuket had received roughly 70% of its pre-pandemic visitors, but that “Chinese arrivals recovery rate is only 30%.”
According to Nomura Holdings Inc., the number of international tourists entering the country would reach close to 30 million in 2023, almost quadruple the 11.2 million who entered in 2018. The Ministry of Tourism and Sports said on Tuesday that the total had now surpassed 17.5 million.
But despite being the country with the most travellers (almost 420,000), China’s return has been slower than anticipated. Before the pandemic, in 2019, around 28% of Thailand’s record 40 million foreign visitors came from China, bringing in an estimated 1.9 trillion baht in income.
Strict e-visa procedures caused delay
According to a research released on Monday by Nomura analysts including Euben Paracuelles, the delay in Chinese arrivals is partially caused by the strict e-visa procedures that were implemented in May, particularly for group travellers. They said that Thailand’s reliance on visitors from less developed places, who would be more susceptible to China’s escalating economic problems, is another barrier.
Thaneth stated that in order to make up for this, his organisation suggested adding flights to the provinces of Krabi and Phuket as well as longer visas for visitors from Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia, who normally spend more money than their counterparts from China and Malaysia, he said.
