Phuket the top tourist destination for foreigners in 2022
Phuket was Thailand’s most visited province by foreign tourists in the first 10 months of 2022 and also the province that generated the most tourism income at 127.9 billion baht, deputy government spokesperson Tipanan Sirichana said on Thursday.
Tipanan was citing statistics from the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, after Thailand welcomed its 10 millionth foreign visitor this year on December 10.
She said Thailand’s tourism industry is gradually recovering from the impact of Covid-19 since the launch of “Phuket Sandbox”, the government’s tourism sandbox initiative that aimed to reopen Thailand gradually, starting with tourism provinces.
“The success of the programme also came from strong public health measures and Thai people’s cooperation that has helped the tourism industry bounce back in a V-shaped recovery and attracted 10 million visitors before the year-end,” she added.
From January to October this year, Phuket received the highest number of foreign tourists at 2.32 million people, followed by Chonburi (975,026), Surat Thani (606,812), Songkhla (581,808) and Chiang Mai (496,111).
Phuket also tops the chart for tourism revenue in 10 months at 127.9 billion baht, followed by Chonburi (13.2 billion), Surat Thani (7.5 billion), Chiang Mai (4.2 billion) and Songkhla (3.6 billion).
The top 10 foreign visitors by nationality in 10 months are: Malaysian (1.29 million), Indian (698,757), Singaporean (381,940), Laotian (345,709), Vietnamese (340,670), South Korean (316,240), United Kingdom (291,753), United States (283,211), Cambodian (252,862) and German (235,596).
