ADAPTING TO CHANGE: THAILAND’S TOURISM RESPONSE TO THE DECLINE OF CHINESE TOURISTS
Keywords:
Tourism resilience, Market diversification, Chinese outbound tourism, Destination image, Thailand, Tourism policyAbstract
Thailand's tourism industry, historically anchored by Chinese visitors, has experienced a decline since 2024, with arrivals decreasing from 6.73 million in 2024 to approximately 4.47 million in 2025, a 34% decline. This downturn is attributed to concerns regarding safety, China's slowing economic growth, currency appreciation, regional competition, and geopolitical challenges. This research examines Thailand's response to this demand shock through a qualitative case study utilizing sources from government agencies, industry stakeholders, and media outlets. It identifies the factors contributing to the decline and evaluates strategies such as visa facilitation, addressing safety issues, market diversification, transitioning from volume-centric to value-oriented destination marketing, and promoting domestic tourism. Diversification initiatives targeting India, Russia, and Europe have partially mitigated revenue losses, with Malaysia overtaking China as the primary source market in 2025, a position it has maintained for over a decade. Nonetheless, the recovery of the Chinese market has been slow, indicating that trust-based tourism markets recover more gradually than those driven mainly by price or accessibility. The study proposes an adaptive resilience framework that links demand shocks to capacity and outcomes (volume, value, image), along with policy recommendations for economies overly dependent on a single market.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Jirasak Rakkarn
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