Thailand Sees Early Results From Visa-Free Travel Period for Chinese Tourists
Skift Take
- Philippines sees over 4 million foreign tourist arrivals in 9 months, exceeding tourism spending targets.
- Thailand's visa-free travel policy for Chinese tourists results in a 30% increase in hotel bookings, approaching 2019 levels.
- Various developments in the hotel and tourism industry, including a new skyscraper in Tokyo and changes in travel intentions worldwide.
Philippines’s tourism secretary said the number of foreign visitor arrivals to the Philippines in the first 9 months of this year has topped 4 million, accounting for more than Php316 billion in tourism spending. Their target for the year is 4.8 million foreign arrivals, so they will most certainly top that projection. South Korea remains the top tourist market with 1.04 million visitors, followed by the US, Japan, China, and Australia. Chinese visitation is only 194,209 arrivals so far. Pre-pandemic, in 2019, Chinese visitor arrivals totaled more than 1.7 million.
With 133,458 visitors to Macau on Monday, they have been averaging 132,578 visitors per day in the first 4 days of Golden Week. The total of 530,312 is quite respectable for 4 days, considering the last pre-Pandemic October Golden Week in 2019 totaled 974,337 for the seven days. Of the total 530,312 visitors, 385,823 have come from mainland China, while 110,990 have come fro
