State-owned Airports of Thailand (AOT) expects 8 million Chinese tourists arrivals for 2024, it president said on Thursday, helped by visa waiver programme.
The announcement comes after the two countries mutually waived visa entry requirements for their nationals effective in March. Thailand removed visa requirements for Chinese late last year.
Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy is betting on revival of tourism, particularly from it’s former top source market of China.
Despite the easing of rules for Chinese visitors, Thailand saw only 3.5 million Chinese arrivals from a total of 28 million foreign tourists last year. Tourism revenue in 2023 was 1.2 trillion baht ($33.86 billion).
