What could be better than allowing your mind to wander thousands of miles and embark on an adventure in a big world during a long vacation, or simply rest comfortably on a regular day. Let’s start planning a trip, let go of the work stress and join the celebration of World Tourism Day (September 27).
World Tourism Day was started in 1980 by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) for the reason that tourism is one of the most important economic sectors in the world as it is involved in education, employment, and other economic growth like a hotel or restaurant.
Although in the past few years the tourism market has faced various difficulties due to the COVID-19 epidemic that the number of tourists both domestically and internationally decrease and cause many businesses to stagnate and have to close down, in 2022 the tourism business has revived again after tourists began to travel more and more, until the number of tourists doubled last year.
Even if Thailand does not have as many Chinese tourists as before, more Indian, Vietnamese, and Korean tourists visit Thailand by 15% of the total number of tourists as before the outbreak of COVID-19.
No more worries! The hotel and restaurant business has revived again.
The research data of Krungsri Bank predicted that the hotel business would gradually recover in 2022-2023 due to the unraveling of COVID-19 crisis. As a result, both Thai and foreign tourists have returned to traveling again, especially in the main tourist provinces like Bangkok, Pattaya, and Phuket, which have an average occupancy rate of 50–55%, which is evident from the average occupancy rate within Thailand for July 2021 and 2022, with 20X more occupancy.
The restaurant business has recovered by 5.0–9.9% of business value this year, after shrinking by 11% last year. Although it is still affected by high raw material costs, full-service restaurants can recover before other types of restaurants and have sales of around 1.31–14.2 billion baht, increasing 10.0%–19.5% compared to last year. Limited-service restaurants increased sales by 4.6%–11.8%, while street food, which was supported by the government’s half-project, increased sales by 2.0%–3.0%.
Over 4 million foreign tourists travel to Thailand. Tourists return to travel again after opening the country.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) revealed that from the data on the number of foreign tourists visiting Thailand from January 1 to August 16, which is the opening period after the lockdown, it was found that the number of tourists has already reached 4 million people, especially in the first half of August, which has more than 4.2 thousand foreign tourists per day. It is considered a good sign for the continued recovery of the tourism industry.
In addition, TAT also predicted that there would be a total of 10 million foreign tourists visiting Thailand by 2022, generating more than 600 billion baht in revenue for the international tourism market, while for the domestic tourism market, it had predicted that it would have around 160 million people and generate more than 600 billion baht in revenue, which would lead to a total revenue of 1.2 trillion baht from tourism this year.
Get to know the tourism behavior of consumers in the new age.
After the overall tourism business began to recover and come back to be better accordingly, each business should prepare a good travel promotion plan because people’s travel behaviors have changed from the past.
In 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic, this led to a 15% drop in travel searches across all types of businesses. It also found that travel websites’ views dropped by 40% from last year, compared to online educational and commerce websites, which increased.
Google, the giant search engine company, which has collected travel-related search data on consumer behavior, revealed that the trend of global tourism had changed since the beginning of 2020. The tourist’s behaviors have changed as follows:
- Begin to travel close to their home.
- Prefer to stay overnight for an average of 11 days to make it worthwhile per one trip.
- Choose to travel with their family and do activities together.
- More concerned and interested in health safety, so prioritize tourist attractions and accommodation which are clean and germ-free.
- Minimize contract and avoid congestion that is a result of familiarity to keep a distance in society.
4 predictions about Thai people tourism trends
Besides people’s travel behaviors that have changed, travel trends have also changed due to more carefulness from COVID-19. As a result, travel planning has increased by 52% from last year and change the travel trends of Thai people this year as follows:
- People tend to choose trips that recharge the mind more than trips that travel to famous places. 86% of Thai tourists become interested in travel, which has a positive effect on their minds and emotions than other forms of relaxation.
- People redefine their working space outside the office. Due to COVID-19, Thai people have new experiences working outside the office. After lifting the lockdown, 74% of people start to like working outside the office. Some people even work in a hotel or coffee shop before going to travel in the evening.
- People prefer to explore nature. 80% of Thai tourists are more likely to enjoy nature than urban travel.
- People often travel to new destinations to meet new people. 76% of Thai tourists revealed that they wanted to meet new people during their trip, which could be predicted that travelers often turned their vacations into golden times to expand their social networks.
Thus, it is a good opportunity for a new start in the tourism industry, both in hotel and restaurant businesses, including other businesses, to make sales as good as before and develop a better business.
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