The Tourism Authority of Thailand is expecting that country’s upcoming Songkran festival will generate more tourism revenue than it did last year, despite projections that the March 28 earthquake has dampened tourist arrivals to the kingdom.
The 7.7-magnitude earthquake, which epicentered in neighboring Myanmar, caused a building under construction near Bangkok’s famous Chatuchak market to collapse, raising questions about the safety of Thailand’s high-rise architecture.
Still, Thailand’s tourism authority, in a press release published Thursday, said that the multi-day festival event in mid-April — the country’s biggest — will generate 26.5 billion Thai baht ($763 million) in tourism revenue, an increase of 8% year on year.
Of that, an estimated 7.3 billion baht will come from some 476,000 international arrivals, according to the release.
Thailand’s tourism ministry also doubled down on its 2025 foreign arrival forecast, with some 38 million visitors expected to arrive this year, according to Reuters.
The country’s minister of tourism and sports said that while more than 1,000 hotel rooms were canceled in the immediate aftermath of the quake, the impact of the natural disaster on tourism is expected to be short term in nature, according to the report.
However, the Thai Hotels Association said it expects the earthquake will affect “the tourism atmosphere” during Songkran Festival 2025, according to a Google translation of a local media report that the association linked to on its Facebook page.
The event, which is marked by joyous splashing of water in streets across the country, may be “even more desolate than in the past two years,” according to the report, which stated that the association is expecting a drop of at least 10%-15% in tourism income in the two weeks following the quake, before returning to normal some two weeks after that.
“The collapse of a building in Chatuchak area has gone viral online, raising questions about safety in Thailand. Therefore, it is very important to urgently build confidence among tourists during this year’s Songkran Festival,” the report said.
Rush to assuage concerns
In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, Thai officials rushed to assuage tourist concerns.
In a post-earthquake joint statement made by Thailand’s real estate and financial sectors, the chairman of the non-profit Federation of Thai Industries, Kriengkrai Thiennukul, said “Thailand remains a safe tourism destination, with government officials maintaining vigilant monitoring of conditions, conducting comprehensive building safety inspections, and providing support to those affected by the earthquake.”
In the same statement, the president of the regulatory Council of Engineers Thailand said “All examined structures demonstrate earthquake resistance as they were designed according to current seismic engineering standards.”
Still, some hotels reached out directly to guests and staff to calm concerns about the integrity of their buildings.
Narawadee Bualert, president and CEO of Lebua Hotels & Resorts, issued a statement that said its location in Bangkok’s State Tower was inspected and “engineers confirmed that the earthquake had no impact on the structural integrity of the building.”
“Starting today, our website will be updated daily with real-time safety updates … You’ll also find engineering reports, historical construction details, and visual documentation showing how Lebua was originally built to withstand both wind loads and seismic activity,” she wrote.
Thailand has been trying to allay worries from Chinese travelers for years — but for a different reason. A fictional 2023 Chinese blockbuster film “No More Bets” depicted a Chinese couple lured to Southeast Asia by human traffickers — a fictional plot line which mirrored real life when the actor Wang Xing was kidnapped in Thailand in January.
Staying the course
Singaporean Morgan Awyong was in a restaurant in Bangkok’s Chinatown district when the earthquake struck.
“The water in the cups were moving, and the ceiling lights were all swaying,” he said. “Outside … birds were flying off, dogs were barking, and one by one, the neighborhood alarms came on.”
Office buildings and stores closed down, as did his hotel, to conduct checks of the building, he said. He added that he got a foot massage and returned to his hotel when it reopened.
He said friends he was traveling with “didn’t change their plans at all, especially when most of the services had resumed the next day.”
Thailand’s hospitality industry is hoping others follow suit, as the country basks in the attention and bookings spurred by season 3 of HBO’s hit show “The White Lotus,” filmed mainly in Koh Samui.
The country is also expected to draw more visitors this year following the legalization of same-sex marriage in January, which is set to establish the country as regional destination wedding locale for gay couples.
In 2024, the country welcomed around 35 million international tourists — some 5 million below 2019’s numbers, according to the World Bank.
— CNBC’s Bella Stoddart contributed to this report.
Source: CNBC