Thailand has seen around 100,000 tourist arrivals in the first ten-month period in 2021 while the number of visitors in November alone was 130,000 mainly due to the reopening of Thailand border to low-risk countries in early November.
The Governor for Tourism Authority of Thailand Yuthasak Supasorn admitted that the number of tourist arrivals in November and December may not meet the expectation of 600,000 due to the new wave of Covid-19 outbreak in Europe, which is the main market for Thailand tourism especially from England, Germany and France.
The governor added that tourists are not afraid of coming to Thailand, but the concern of a resurgence of Covid-19 in their origin will cause a lockdown, which would lead to a closing border.
The Bank of Thailand, in cooperation with the Thai Hotels Association announced earlier that the average occupancy in November was 30%, increased from 23.5% in October while expecting the figure to reach 34.1% in December 2021.
Meanwhile, out of 146 hotels in the survey, 68% were fully opened in November, 14% opened roughly 50% of the hotel capacity and 11% opened roughly lower than 50% of its capacity, which would leave 7% of the hotel operators still closed.
FSS International Investment Advisory (FSSIA) expected a strong recovery of tourism-related stocks. FSSIA believed domestic tourism will recover to the pre-Covid level in 2022. However, FSSIA forecast international tourist numbers to recover to 40% of the pre-Covid level. Some tourism stocks have the potential to turn profitable in 2022.
FSSIA estimated the target for SET Index by the end of 2022 at 1,892 points, led by the commodity and tourism-related sectors.
