Malaysian are top visitors to Thailand

International tourist arrivals are expected to reach 20.5 million to 20.8 million this year, up in a range of 7.4% to 8.9% from 19.09 million last year, thanks to the positive trend in Asia, according to the Department of Tourism.

They are projected to bring in 788 billion baht in revenue, up from 734.5 billion last year.
The department's forecast is higher than that of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) at 19.55 million tourists and revenue of 766 billion baht.

According to the UN World Tourism Organisation, global tourism is expected to grow 3-4% while Thailand should grow by 8-10% in line with the healthy regional economies this year.

Supol Sripan, the department director-general, said Thailand's top 10 markets were, in order, Malaysia, China, Russia, Australia, the UK, Japan, Korea, Singapore, India and the United States.

The department will spend its 2012 budget of 1.81 billion baht on three main projects: developing potential tourism sites and restoring flood-hit ones, keeping tourism statistics and preparing information for the Asean Economic Community (AEC) in 2015.

Meanwhile, the TAT has forecast revenue of around 11 billion baht from tourism during the Chinese New Year, which falls on Feb 23 this year.

TAT governor Surapol Svetasreni forecast 300,000 international visitors spending 4 billion baht during the period, and 2.5 million domestic trips with revenue of 7 billion baht.

Between 150 and 200 chartered flights from China are expected during the festival, slightly lower than last year's figure.