Bangkok gateway loses passengers

24 Jul 2014  2036 | World Travel News

Thailand’s main gateway Suvarnabhumi Airport will handle less than 50 million passengers by year end, down from 52 million last year.
Suvarnabhumi Airport director, Raweewan Netarakavesan, said it was now very likely that the decline in passengers at the country’s main gateway will make it impossible to reach an 8% increase in tourist arrivals.
“This year, the kingdom main gateway airport will see passenger traffic drop to around 48 to 50 million a decline of 3.8% to 7.7%.”
Passenger traffic figures do not directly collate to tourist arrivals. The airport authorities are counting use of the airport by passengers. It includes passengers using the airport to transfer to connecting flights to a third country or a change of flight to a domestic destination in Thailand.
Tourism officials have high hopes that waiving visa costs for Chinese and Taiwanese tourists will boost arrivals from 1 August to 31 October this year, but the visa fee is not a major financial factor. Chinese travellers still have to apply for a visa and saving THB1,000 is not a big incentive when compared to other costs involved in travelling to Thailand.
However, it does send a positive message that Chinese tourists are welcome and acts as a positive factor to build confidence, although most tourism executives who know the Chinese market would have preferred a visa-exemption for three months.
Suvarnabhumi Airport serves approximately 110,000 inbound passengers a day during the low season and around 140,000 during high season.
For January to June this year, Suvarnabhumi Airport handled 22.57 million passengers, a decrease of 12.09% from 25.68 million during the same period last year, according to Airports of Thailand’s data.
Overall, AoT’s six airports handled 43.23 million passengers for the first six months, down 1.04% from 43.68 million last year.
In addition, tourist using the services of Association of Thai Travel Agents’ members at Suvarnabhumi Airport declined 43.28% from 2,293,679 to 1,301,076 in the first half of the year.
ATTA’s figures represent tourists who have bought a travel package in advance and use travel agency services to tour the country.
The top five markets recorded declines were: Hong Kong (-87.51%); Vietnam (-81.45%); Taiwan (-69.31%); Japan (-65.88%); and China (-57.48%).

Sourced: ttrweekly

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