Thailand focuses on international, but needs domestic tourism

With Covid-19 closing borders for more than a year, the damage from losing international tourism has revealed a major weakness in Thailand’s overall tourism strategy. With up to 18% of the country’s GDP brought in by tourism, the disproportionate dependence on foreign travellers and lack of attention to domestic tourism has ravaged the industry and the national economy.

Thailand had enjoyed a booming international tourist market, with up to 40 million foreign travellers arriving each year in the country and spending trillions of baht. But many fear now that it was to the detriment of a healthy domestic tourism market. Figures show that, while tourism made up 14.2% to 18.2% of the GDP each year, domestic travellers made up only 5.3% to 6.39%, while international tourism generally made up 11% or more.

Without foreign holidaymakers due to Covid-19, once lively resort towns and…