Thailand Sees Drop in Chinese Tourists Amid Safety Fears
Thailand saw a drop in the net booking volume of Chinese tourist arrivals between January 13-20 and one week prior, according to data by the marketing technology company China Trading Desk, published by CNBC. The decline comes amid heightened concerns among some Chinese travelers over safety in Thailand, following the kidnapping of Chinese actor Wang Xing, 31, who was taken from Thailand and delivered to an illegal cyber camp for online scams in Myanmar in early January. Wang was rescued and returned home on January 7.
As the following chart shows, there was a 15.6 percent decline in Chinese arrivals in Thailand between the two weeks. Decreases observed in several other SEA countries such as Vietnam (-7.7 percent), Singapore (-3.2 percent), Indonesia (-2.6 percent) and Malaysia (-07 percent), have also been linked to the perceived safety concerns, with China Trading Desk CEO Subramania Bhatt describing this pattern as “collateral damage”. Several other countries saw increases in net booking volume week-on-week in this time frame, including Japan (+1.1 percent) and Australia (+4.8 percent).
Chinese tourism is important to Thailand’s post-Covid travel recovery. As this chart shows, Chinese nationals were the biggest group of foreign tourist arrivals in Thailand in 2024, accounting for more than 6.2 million people. The next biggest groups were Malaysians at 4.5 billion and Indians at 1.9 million.
Although the Thai government has tried to assure Chinese travelers that the country is safe for travel, a reported 10,000 trips were canceled during the Lunar New Year travel season from China, according to public broadcaster ThaiPBS, citing Airports of Thailand (AOT). Travel and Tour world adds that while overall tourist numbers are expected to have increased for the Lunar New Year period compared to last year, Chinese arrivals between January 24 to February 2, 2025 are expected to be down.