SKorean tourists to Thailand likely to exceed one million in 2012

BANGKOK, February 11 (TNA) - The Kasikorn Research Center (KRC) has projected that the number of South Korean visitors to Thailand should reach 1.22 million in 2012, up by at least 20 per cent from a year earlier, given that there is no serious untoward incident in the country. According to the Bangkok-based research firm, the surge in South Korean tourists is expected to earn Thailand some 40 billion baht tourism-related revenues this year, up by 25 per cent from 2011, with most South Korean travelers' spending expected on hotel accommodations, especially in renowned Thai tourist destinations namely Phuket, Samui Island and Krabi in the South, Pattaya and Rayong in the East, Chiang Mai in the North and even Bangkok. The leading Thai private think tank acknowledged that most South Korean visitors, or 56 per cent, have travelled to Thailand for business purposes, half of them earned incentive travel trips from their companies, followed by vacation at 35 per cent and other purposes at 9 per cent. According to the KRC survey, more than half of the South Korean visitors to Thailand were aged between 25 and 44, most of them visited the Kingdom for the first time, with Thailand’s good services and facilities found to have thrown up the number of South Korean visitors to the country. South Koreans have represented the fifth largest group of foreign tourists in Thailand so far, after those from Malaysia, China, Japan and Russia, emerging as a major tourism market for the Thai economy, prompting local tour operators to have turned their attentions to underpin growth in the South Korean market, targeting incentive travels and visitors with high purchasing power including golf lovers and honeymooners. (TNA)