Strengthening baht adds to woes of ailing travel sector
The private sector has called for efforts to restore confidence ahead of the high season.
The Tourism and Sports Ministry reported this week foreign tourism receipts of 938 billion baht from 20 million visitors between Jan 1 and Aug 10, below the 2025 target of 1.77 trillion baht.
Thanet Supornsahasrungsi, president of the Association of Chonburi Tourism Federation, said the baht rallying against the US dollar by 5-6% this year is a negative factor that already affected short-haul markets such as China, which now flocks to Japan due to the weak yen.
He said even though Thailand secured a larger number of long-haul arrivals over the past seven months, if tourists perceive the country as unappealing in terms of value for money, they might pivot to other destinations.
"We've consistently felt the impact from a weaker global economy, as tourists from many countries opted to cut overseas travel costs, seek countries where their currency appreciated, or chose to stay at home," said Mr Thanet.
He said the government should respond more quickly to address problems, especially safety issues, which are at the core of the problem.
Since two incidents occurred in Bangkok -- a shooting spree at Or Tor Kor market last month and Malaysian tourists being set on fire last week -- the government has done little to improve tourist confidence, said Mr Thanet.
Given weak arrivals from China and South Korea, he said Pattaya now depends on weekends or long holidays to lift occupancy rates from local travellers.
For instance, during the recent Mother's Day holiday, the average occupancy rate in Pattaya surged to 80-90%, but it drastically dropped to 30-40% during weekdays.
"We might not immediately feel the pinch from the latest case involving Malaysian tourists, as this period coincides with the school break in China, where tourists already booked their trips and are still travelling as planned, likely resulting in 5% growth this month," said Mr Thanet.
"We're more concerned about forward bookings if the government doesn't attempt to restore confidence."
He said the co-payment scheme for domestic travel helped increase the local market to some extent, but small and medium-sized hoteliers have not reaped the benefits as much as large hotels due to delayed budget allocation.
From the first month of implementation in July, many small hotels had to withdraw from the scheme as they didn't receive payments from the government as scheduled, causing them to bear the costs of servicing those guests in advance.
As privileges for major destinations including Pattaya have been fully redeemed, tourism operators urged the government to switch to the more efficient Pao Tang app operated by Krungthai Bank (KTB), said Mr Thanet.
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