BANGKOK – Tourism agencies believe the permanent visa-free measure will bring 8 million Chinese tourists back to Thailand, or a 75 percent recovery rate from before the 2019 pandemic.
They have welcomed the lifting of visa requirements for holders of ordinary Thai passports and semi-official passports, as well as ordinary Chinese passports, under an agreement between the Thai and Chinese governments that will come into effect on March 1, 2024.
Thapanee Kiatphaibool, governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), said the policy will facilitate travel and greatly benefit tourism between Thais and Chinese. It will lead to an increase in flights between the two countries, which will reduce airfares that have risen since the COVID-19 pandemic. This will encourage more travel and cause tourists to spread to new groups and areas, especially in China’s second-tier cities.
TAT has also signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) on tourism cooperation with eight leading Chinese companies and partnered with Chinese airlines to accelerate the restoration of confidence, develop the Thai tourism industry in all aspects and cater to the potential Chinese tourist group.
“We have also partnered with iQIYI, a Chinese streaming platform, to use locations in Thailand for movies and series, which will attract Chinese people to travel to Thailand,” she said.
The governor of TAT also stated that she is not concerned that visa-free travel between Thailand and China will result in more Thais visiting China because China has a population of 1.4 billion people, giving Thailand additional opportunity to expand the number of tourists.
Keerati Kitmanawat, president of Airports of Thailand Public Company Limited (AOT), said AOT is currently preparing the airports for the traffic of Chinese and Thai travelers who will travel back and forth between the two countries. AOT also provides facilities and manages services at the airports efficiently.
The AOT estimates that more than 8 million Chinese tourists will enter Thailand during the visa-free period in 2024, a 75 percent recovery from 2019, when 11.1 million Chinese tourists came to Thailand.
AOT will work with TAT to launch campaigns to attract tourists and airlines to increase demand for travel to Thailand. AOT also has a performance-based incentive scheme at its six airports, which is another way to attract airlines.
At the same time, AOT will support airlines operating international scheduled flights as well as special flights and unscheduled or charter flights, in addition to the number of flights of its own airlines authorized in their schedules as of September 8, 2023.
Thai government spokesperson Chai Wacharonke said that after news reports about the permanent visa-free measure for Chinese tourists, in just 1 hour, the number of searches for the word Thailand on the platform of Ctrip Group, a travel service provider, increased by more than 90%, and searches for flights on the Shanghai-Bangkok and Beijing-Bangkok routes increased by more than 40%. In addition, travel bookings to Thailand between January 2, 2024, and Chinese New Year. increased more than 10 times.
The visa exemption will increase the number of flights between the two nations, lowering airfares and helping boost Chinese visitors to meet the year-end target, he added.
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