Despite a tourism downturn this year, Thailand should not lose its grip on promoting the markets next year, as the government should quickly fix perceptions concerning the lack of safety by revamping its image to resemble a trusted destination and by partnering with airlines to maintain seats and affordable airfares, in order to increase revenue by 8% to 1.63 trillion baht as targeted.
Yuthasak Supasorn, former governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and chairman of the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand, said as the TAT has still set an ambitious arrivals target of 34.9 million, up 4%, and a foreign revenue target of 1.63 trillion baht, up 8%, a range of measures should be implemented in order for the country to make a comeback in 2026.
He said it would remain challenging to achieve those targets next year if the safety concerns are left unresolved.
Performance for the first nine months has already shown the severe impact of the perception problem, as arrivals plunged by 7.56% year-on-year to 24 million, while revenue declined by 5.85% to 1.1 trillion baht.
The recovery also largely depends on how effectively the country can leverage current measures, such as chartered flights and online travel promotions, to boost the Chinese market.
From October 2025 to January 2026, the TAT is rolling out these two key stimulus projects for international markets, including the chartered flight promotion, in which 100,949 of the 140,000 targeted packages have been sold via 710 flights.
The online platform marketing project, which is aimed at increasing occupancy rates and advance bookings for hotels, has already issued over 533,000 discount codes of 17.5%, capped at 1,500 baht per code, with the goal of attracting 950,000 travellers and 7.2 billion baht via the campaign.
At present, there are seven global-level companies participating in this project with 279,854 bookings completed.
Mr Yuthasak said Thailand should revamp its image to be widely recognised and accepted as “The land of smiles defined by quality, trusted for safety”, banking on integrated collaboration with all relevant sectors to upgrade safety.
“Addressing issues such as crimes against tourists’ personal property, accidents, as well as preventing exploitation and scams is essential. Service quality, especially regarding taxis, is also a key area for improvement,” said Mr Yuthasak.
As the TAT is initiating the “Trusted Thailand” project, encouraging at least 5,000 hotels, restaurants, shopping malls and attractions to elevate their operations to earn the new safety standard, he said the programme should help tourists regain confidence in services, safe payment and the provision of more fluent language communication and convenient accessibility.
AIRLINE BOOST
To compete on price amid rising consumption costs in Thailand, he said the TAT should strengthen partnerships with airlines as the growth of the inbound market is largely reliant on available seats with acceptable prices for travellers, he said.
If both flight frequency and seat capacity can be restored to previous levels, airfares will remain affordable. Otherwise, overpriced airfares may deter tourists from choosing Thailand, driving them to cheaper destinations.
Mr Yuthasak said the government should aggressively attract those with high purchasing power such as health and wellness travellers and business blended with leisure tourists, specifically repeat visitors and those holding a passport for the first time.