The state planning unit looks set to upgrade its forecasts for tourism revenue and arrival numbers as it expects a surge of visitors from China after the country reopened its borders.
According to Danucha Pichayanan, secretary-general of the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC), this month's resumption of Chinese tourism, with the first flight arriving in Thailand yesterday, would directly benefit the Thai economy.
"The agency is monitoring the situation regarding Chinese tourist arrivals and will take about 2-3 weeks to evaluate the forecast," said Mr Danucha.
The NESDC currently expects tourism revenue to rise to 1.2 trillion baht from 23.5 million foreign tourist arrivals in 2023, up from 570 billion baht and 10.2 million arrivals in 2022. The forecast had assumed that Chinese tourists would only return in the second half of this year.
The new forecast is likely to be revealed in February during the official announcement of Thai GDP growth for the fourth quarter of 2022.
"A faster-than-expected reopening of China and an anticipated flood of Chinese tourists to Thailand will definitely deliver a positive effect to the Thai tourism sector. Businesses in the tourism supply chain such as restaurants, hotels and shopping malls are expected to enjoy higher income and employment," said Mr Danucha.
"Public health measures we have been implementing, together with up to 70% of Thai people getting inoculated, are believed to be enough to cope with the Covid-19 outbreaks."
Nevertheless, he called on Thai tourism entrepreneurs to upgrade safety standards and conduct business in an honest manner to maintain the country's reputation.
The NESDC expects the economy to expand by 3-4% (an average of 3.5%) this year, up from projected growth of 3.2% last year and a 1.5% uptick in 2021.
Mr Danucha noted that while the tourism sector is expected to benefit from Chinese tourists, the exports which represent up to 70% of the country's GDP needed to be closely monitored as the sector is vulnerable to a possible global recession and other risks such as volatile financial markets, highly uncertain geopolitical risks, new variants of Covid-19, and rising domestic household debt.
The NESDC expects the value of Thailand's exports in US dollar terms to grow by only 1% this year, compared with 7.5% growth in 2022.
