Thai nationals remain top of the list of tourist arrivals
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VIENTIANE - Thai nationals have topped the list of tourists coming to Laos over the past decade, according to the latest government report.
A recent statistics report for 2015 issued by the Tourism Development Department of the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism shows that more than 2.3 million Thai tourists out of a total of over 4.6 million tourists came to Laos last year.
The report also revealed that Vietnam nationals constituted the second highest number with over 1.18 million visitors. Next on the list were 511,436 Chinese nationals, 165,328 visitors from the Republic of Korea, and 43,825 Japanese tourists.
The Asia-Pacific region has a 93 percent share of the tourism market in Laos while Europeans, the second largest group, account for almost 5 percent.
Of European nationals, the largest number came from France with 55,151 visitors, followed by 41,508 from the United Kingdom, 31,897 from Germany, 12,532 from Russia, and 9,777 from Switzerland.
The growth rate of tourist arrivals by region from 1995-2015 showed an increase in the Asia-Pacific region of 14.05 percent, while Europe's share grew by 12.49 percent, the Americas by 11 percent, and arrivals from Africa and the Middle East increased by 18.86 percent.
The report also noted a significant incr ease in tourist arrivals in 2015 when over 4.6 million people visited Laos - an increase of 13 percent compared to 2014, when over 4.1 milli on tourists visited Laos.
There was also a sizeable increase in income from tourism, rising from more than US$641 million in 2014 to over US$725 million in 2015.
But income generated by the tourism sector declined from second place in 2014 to third place in 2015. The report showed that in 2015 the minerals sector took first place, generating over US$1.292 billion in revenue for the government.
Second place was occupied by all other industries, yielding over US$917 million, while electricity generation was fourth on the list with more than US$495 million, and agricultural products came in fifth with revenue of US$319 million.
In the tourism sector, the report made predictions for tourist arrivals and revenue from 2016 to 2025, forecasting tourist arrivals to reach over 5 million and revenue to exceed US$801 million in 2016.
The report also forecasted that tourist arrivals and revenue generated would jump to over 9 million people and over US$1.4 billion respectively in 2025.
