Give away big gifts at the beginning of 2024. Thai Prime Minister Saita announced a five-month temporary visa-free entry policy for Chinese tourists, which will expire on February 29, 2024. Thailand will implement a permanent visa-free entry policy for China from March 1, and at the same time, China and Thailand will also permanently exempt each other from visas. This measure will not only play a positive role in promoting Thailand’s tourism industry, but also reflect the further enhancement of friendly relations between the two countries. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that it is in the fundamental interests of the two peoples to further strengthen people-to-people exchanges between China and Thailand and to exempt each other from visas, and China looks forward to the early entry into force of the relevant arrangements.
With the approval of the Thai Cabinet, Thai Foreign Minister Banbi will travel to China in January or early February 2024 to sign the agreement. The essence of the draft agreement is that holders of ordinary passports and official passports of China and Thailand will be granted visa-free entry treatment, with a single stay of no more than 30 days and a cumulative stay of no more than 90 days within 180 days. Exceptions are made for permanent residence, work, study, media activities, or other circumstances that require prior permission.
After the announcement of Thailand’s permanent visa exemption to China, the search volume of Thai keywords on many travel platforms soared. According to Ctrip data, the search volume of keywords in Thailand increased by more than 90% from an hour ago, and the search volume of flights from Shanghai to Bangkok and Beijing to Bangkok increased by more than 40% instantly. The search popularity of travel in Thailand on the Tongcheng travel platform increased by 158% compared with the same period the day before. Residents of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Sichuan, Zhejiang and other provinces and cities are most concerned about Thailand’s tourism-related news. The Qunar Index shows that the search volume for hotels in Bangkok, Thailand has reached a new high. Fliggy data shows that within one hour of the announcement of the new visa-free policy, the search volume for air tickets in Thailand instantly increased by more than 2 times, with Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai, Koh Samui, Krabi and other destinations being the most popular destinations. Qin Jing, General Manager of the Public Affairs Department of Trip.com Group, pointed out that China and Thailand are important sources and destinations for each other. During the 2024 New Year’s Day holiday, Thailand ranks among the top three popular destinations for Chinese tourists to travel abroad.
The permanent visa exemption will have a positive and far-reaching impact on people-to-people exchanges and tourism development between the two countries. The convenience of people from all walks of life in China and Thailand to carry out business, exhibition, travel and other activities will be greatly improved. Sisadiwa, chairman of the Tourism Association of Thailand, said the new visa policy will increase the number of Thai tourists to China by at least 10 to 30 percent.
According to Thailand’s Minister of Tourism and Sports, Sudawan, Thailand received more than 28 million foreign tourists in 2023, generating 1.2 trillion baht, or about 34.9 billion US dollars. The number of Chinese tourists reached 3.5 million.It has become the second largest source market in Thailand, after Malaysia.
With the blessing of the permanent visa exemption between China and Thailand, after the New Year holiday, the number of tourists from various countries to Thailand has not decreased, and it continues to be popular. Chinese tourists, in particular, seem to have been the first to recover at Thai airports.
According to a number of Thai media reports, with the increase in the number of Chinese flights to Thailand, a large number of Chinese tourists have entered Thailand, and there is a great possibility of recreating the momentum of overcrowding Thai airports before the epidemic. Some Chinese tourists posted on social platforms that they arrived in Thailand at 2 a.m., but they didn’t expect Suvarnabhumi International Airport to be extremely congested, and it took more than 3 hours to queue for entry! “The entire Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, whether it is the arrival or departure gate, is full of ‘crowds’, and the tourism environment seems to have returned to the crowded and lively state before the epidemic! From visa approval to baggage claim to airport exits, Chinese tourists can be seen in more than 10-meter-long queues, and Chinese welcome signs are increasing day by day, and the number of Chinese flights is rapidly recovering.
Not only Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport has seen a long queue of Chinese tourists, but many Thai airports, including Phuket and Pattaya, have seen a large influx of tourists to varying degrees, staging congestion and long queues to enter the customs. In particular, Phuket Airport has experienced an influx of Russian tourists in addition to Chinese tourists, exacerbating congestion at Phuket Airport. At the same time, it also indicates that Thailand is very hopeful of achieving its new goal of attracting more than 35 million outbound travelers in 2024, after setting a new post-pandemic record of 28 million outbound travel arrivals in 2023.
（The content comes from the web）
