Phuket arrivals hit new record high as Thailand celebrates 10mn visits

PHUKET: Phuket International Airport saw a new post-pandemic record number of international arrivals yesterday (Dec 9) and expects even more today (Dec 10) while the country celebrates 10 million visits for the year.

Celebrations to welcome foreign visitors took place at seven airports and two immigration checkpoints on Dec 10 as the country recorded 10 million foreign tourist arrivals from Jan 1, 2022.

It is yet to be revealed who became the lucky 10-millionth visitor and what presents this person received from authorities.

Last time, in 2019, Russian tourist Anna Pavlovskaya became visitor number 39,000,000 and was awarded with certificates for another Thai holiday from Tourism Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn.

This time Minister Phiphat and Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha were both expected to welcome the10-millionth visitor at Suvarnabhumi airport on Dec 10, more specifically – from one of the flights from Saudi Arabia. The authorities have not yet reported how the event went.

Meanwhile Phuket International Airport yesterday (Dec 9) recorded 10,900 foreign arrivals, which was the highest number since March 2020, when Gen Prayuth closed the country for international travelers due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Russian nationals topped arrivals to Phuket with 2,668 Russian passport holders passing immigration control on Dec 9 alone and an impressive 89,816 since Nov 1.

Even more foreign arrivals can be expected today (Dec 10) as Saturdays are the busiest days for Phuket International Airport in this winter season.

As Phuket still counts arrivals for Dec 10, Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew has already visited the airport with representatives from the public and private sectors to welcome 722 foreign visitors from the United Kingdom, India, South Korea and USA.

Gov Narong warmly greeted visitors who arrived in the morning on TUI Airways flight BY086 from London; IndiGo flight 6E1763 from Delhi; and Delta Air Lines / Korean Air flights DL7929 / KE663 from Seoul.

All the passengers received souvenirs to mark the day when Thailand welcomed 10mn tourists again.

harald the russian trying to promote more war criminals coming here from the insane regime of putin. If that is your idea of better standards then you are clearly not worth listening to and totally clueless.

@JohnC Wrong, since more tourists have come from Russia, and due to a lack of money, hardly any from western countries, who used to play in crowds of "papas" with hired Thai women, the standard has increased very nicely

I agree with JohnC. We all realize that times have been hard on local people, but this tourist revival has scraped the bottom of the bucket just to get people here from anywhere. While there are lots of big spending tourists, there are also planeloads of people dodging wars and living on shoestrings, contributing very little to the economy. These are not tourists, but long term dodgers.

I know Thailand depend (far to much) on tourism and they think this is something to celebrate but the standard of these tourists has been getting worse and worse in recent years. I am fed up tourists who don't care about their cultural insensitivity towards local people. Is money so important when their behaviour is so bad?

Phuket arrivals hit new record high as Thailand celebrates 10mn visits

Phuket arrivals hit new record high as Thailand celebrates 10mn visits

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