A huge 138-percent surge in Chinese visitor spending paved the way for the Thai tourism industry to chalk up 697.5 billion baht (19.7 billion U.S. dollars) in total visitor expenditure in the first half of 2015, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) said Wednesday.
Chinese visitors are now by far the biggest source of both visitors and expenditure, totaling 4 million arrivals in the first six months of this year, up 111 percent over 1.89 million in the same period of 2014, the TAT said in a statement, citing figures from the Ministry of Tourism and Sports.
The expenditure of Chinese visitors reached 190.9 billion baht in the January-June period, up 138.9 percent compared to 79.9 billion baht in the same period last year, according to the TAT.
The total expenditure by visitors of all nationalities was up 29.69 percent year-on-year, and matched the 29.54-percent growth in visitor arrivals in January-June 2015.
In terms of arrivals, the top 10 nationalities were China, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, India, Russia, United Kingdom, Singapore and the United States.
The sharp rise in visitor expenditure is playing a major role in bolstering the Thai economy, supporting jobs and income distribution nationwide, the TAT said, projecting 28.8 million international visitors generating an estimated 1.4 trillion baht in 2015.
