Thailand to See Increase in Chinese New Year Tourism Spend

Dark/Light Mode (09/02/24)  According to data from the global travel service provider Trip.com, Thailand will see an increase of 44.3% in total trip expenditure for inbound bookings during this year’s Chinese New Year (CNY) festive period when compared to 2023’s CNY period, with expenditure for outbound travellers increasing by 70.8%.

Chinese New Year, also known as the Lunar New Year and Spring Festival, will officially begin this year on Saturday, 10 February 2024.

Part of the reason for increased spending could be due to Southeast Asian tourists making longer-haul trips, with more travellers travelling beyond Southeast Asia (SEA) for the 2024 CNY period.

Last year, 72% of CNY travel was intra-SEA, but this has gone down to just over half (50.2%), with the other half visiting destinations further afield.

View of Pattaya Beach from the Siam@Siam Design Hotel swimming pool. Picture by Steven Howard of TravelNewsAsia.com

Perhaps unsurprisingly, SEA countries which have public holidays for Chinese New Year - Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam - are seeing more travel during the week of CNY than countries which do not have official CNY public holidays such as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand, even though many people and companies in those countries do celebrate the festive period. In the week of CNY, countries with CNY public holidays make up 69.1% of all SEA bookings, versus 59% of all SEA bookings for the week before CNY.

Another two trends that cut across markets are the lengthening of booking windows, and the popularity of theme parks.

Travellers are now planning their trips further in advance, with the booking window for trips originating from Thailand more than quadrupling – from nine days to 40 days – this CNY compared to last year. That is similar to Malaysia, where the booking window surged from 12 days to 51 days, with Singapore seeing an increase of two and a half times – from 18 days to 46 days.

Meanwhile, theme parks rule the roost for most popular attractions for tourists from Southeast Asia. Hong Kong Disneyland is the top choice for travellers from Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, with Universal Studios Japan; Tokyo Disneyland; Universal Studios Singapore; and Warner Bros Studio Tour Tokyo – The Making of Harry Potter making up the rest of Thai travellers’ top five overseas attractions.

“Last week, we collaborated with the Tourism Authority of Thailand to host a Super World Trip BOSS Live livestream session in Bangkok, which grossed THB100 million of GMV in a day,” said Diane Cui, General Manager, Trip.com Thailand. “We are expecting the travel industry in Thailand to continue its healthy recovery this year, especially with the recent signing of the visa-free travel agreement between the Thai and Chinese governments, and look forward to welcoming more visitors from around the world to this beautiful country.”

See also: Thailand Tourism Press Conference at the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2024 in Vientiane, Laos

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See more: NTO Press Conferences from the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2024.

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