Local tourism this year has been marked by a higher volume of short trips, with inflation and flooding affecting average spending per person, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).
The number of domestic trips in the first nine months tallied 103 million, but if one-day trips are included, the total jumps to 177 million, generating 640 billion baht.
Thapanee Kiatphaibool, deputy governor for domestic marketing at the TAT, said higher costs attributed to inflation and energy prices have prevented the government from hitting its goal of 4,000 baht spending per person on overnight trips.
More tourists chose nearby provinces for one-day trips to save money, while some of them were concerned about the flooding situation and opted for more frequent, shorter trips.
Thai tourists spent 2,800 baht for a 2.2-day trip on average, while one-day spending was around 1,300 baht. That spending was higher than the levels recorded during the pandemic in 2020-2021, but stimulus to encourage higher outlays is still considered necessary in this challenging environment, she said.
Floods in 29 provinces have affected domestic trips to some extent as 5-10% of flights and hotel bookings were cancelled, with Phuket and Krabi seeing a severe impact with cancellations of 8-10%.
"Without flooding, domestic trips in October should have matched pre-pandemic numbers of 17.3 million trips. But the natural disaster slowed this market to 14 million trips this month," said Ms Thapanee.
She said external factors such as other countries reopening to tourists and targeting Thais with the means to travel also hampered domestic tourism, with the main Thai segments targeted being couples, friends, families, and solo male travellers, which account for 36%, 18%, 10% and 9.5% of the market, respectively.
Ms Thapanee said the TAT is still optimistic that several long holidays and the festive season in the final two months of the year will push total trips up to 160 million. Positive signs include more tourists choosing to stay at hotels or resorts thanks to a government subsidy of 40% on hotel rooms. Before the pandemic, 20% of local tourists chose to stay at the homes of relatives or friends, but this has fallen to 11%, she said.
"Hopefully we can boost the occupancy rate to 70% the final two months," said Ms Thapanee.