The State Agency for Tourism in Thailand (TAT) has published statistics on the tourism industry of the country since the beginning of this year.
It turned out that in general, despite the riots in Bangkok, which had lasted for more than two months in March, April and May, the flow of tourists coming to the Land of Smiles was still quite high.
Thus, from January to May 2010 6,563,099 foreign tourists had visited Thailand, which is 16.07% higher than in the corresponding period last year.
According to TAT, with the beginning of the year, tourists have brought 240 billion baht (about 7.4 billion dollars) into the economy of Thailand. This is 20.26% higher than it was during the same period in 2009.
The current Top 5 Travel Thailand is Malaysia (770,804 tourists for the period January-May 2010), China (428,709 visitors), United Kingdom (352,586 visitors) and South Korea (335,648 visitors), followed by Russia (284,424 tourists) and India (277,393 tourists).
Meanwhile, some experts believe that the full restoration of the tourism industry in Thailand will require six months.
In particular, the deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Thailand Bandit Nichatavorn expressed such opinion.
He recalled that it took six months to restore tourist flow after the outbreak of avian flu in 2003 and the tsunami in December 2004.
After the capture of the so-called “yellow” demonstrators Suvannapum of the capital’s airport in late 2008, tourism industry recovered slightly longer – seven months.