The Thai government, businesses, and citizens are cherishing the news of returning Chinese tourists with the first group of 286 passengers who arrived on Monday. The Tourism Authority of Thailand estimates that 5 million Chinese tourists will visit our country this year, bringing with them 250 billion baht in spending money. I have two comments on this joyful news. Firstly, the ban on the sale of outbound group and package travel imposed by China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism on Jan 27, 2020, is still in effect. There is no telling when this ban will be relaxed or lifted. Second, the mass arrival of Chinese tourists was already factored into the World Bank's GDP growth projections. The Bank projected that the Thai economy would grow by 3.6% in 2023. To achieve such growth, the arrival of 22.4 million foreign tourists, with 6.2 million from China, was assumed.
Despite the bright outlook for the tourism sector, which accounted for 12% of Thai GDP in 2019, our domestic economy is deteriorating fast and started doing so in the final quarter of last year. The sector of concern is the manufacturing sector. The manufacturing sector is the largest economic sector, with a share of 27.4% of GDP in 2019. The second-largest sector is wholesale and retail trade, with a GDP share of 17.3%. The two sectors, accounting for almost half the Thai economy, are inter-connected as wages earned from the manufacturing sector would be used in purchasing goods from wholesalers and retailers.
