TAT foresees 1m arrivals from Russia this year
Russia is expected to bounce back with a million arrivals this year thanks to the strong revival of its economy, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand.
As the Russian economy began to stabilise along with the value of the rouble, visits to Thailand from that country began to rise in February and have been growing steadily ever since. In the first seven months of 2016, Russian arrivals totalled 599,141, up by 18.39 per cent over the same period in 2015.
Visanu Jaroensilp, TAT’s deputy governor for tourism products and business, said 12 Thai tourism businesses including hotels, tour operators and travel-related agencies participated in “Otdykh-Leisure 2016”, an event held in Russia from Wednesday to Saturday last week.
He said that next year, the two countries would celebrate the 120th anniversary of bilateral relations, and that would create more tourism business, since Russia is the largest source market in Europe and one of Thailand’s top 10 sources of visitor arrivals.
BOI reports more investment in targeted sectors
The government’s vision to drive the country out of the “middle-income trap” through the establishment of an innovation-driven economy has gradually taken shape as an incremental investment trend is observed, especially in target industries, according to the Board of Investment.
According to the BOI’s latest statistics, investment projects in targeted sectors under its promotional incentive scheme increased continuously from January to July.
For example, the value of investment projects in digital-related businesses increased from Bt2.38 billion in January to Bt3.68 billion in July, while investment in science, technology and innovation services increased from Bt16.97 billion in January to Bt43.44 billion in June.
Renewable energy also saw investment increase from Bt4.74 billion in January to Bt44.29 billion in June. Logistics-development projects also enjoyed a growing trend with the Bt1.23 billion in investments in January.
