The year started badly, with many Chinese travellers scrapping plans to visit after actor Wang Xing was abducted from Thailand and later rescued from a scam centre in neighbouring Myanmar. Thailand was then rocked by Myanmar’s biggest earthquake in a century, a bloody border conflict with Cambodia, severe flooding in the south, and a political crisis that brought a new government to power.
(Dec 30): Thailand, famed for its fantastic food and wild nightlife, is poised for its first annual drop in tourist arrivals in a decade outside the pandemic, after multiple crises hurt the confidence of holidaymakers.
The country had welcomed 32.6 million foreign travellers as of Dec 28, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports said Tuesday (Dec 30). That represents a more than 7% drop from the same period last year.
