The flow of tourists from Russia to Thailand grew by nearly a quarter in 2017

The foreign tourist flow to Thailand by the end of 2017 reached 35.38 million people and 1.34 million of these numbers were visitors from Russia. Although this figure is below the maximum of pre-crisis indicators this is the best result for the last three years. The Ministry of Tourism and Sports of the country published appropriate preliminary data before the New Year holidays. The document also contains a forecast for the next year, based on the data for the period from January 1 to December 23, 2017 and previous years' experience. According to the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of Thailand, the growth of the tourist flow should be 8.77%. Statistics of Thailand's Ministry of Tourism is based on the data of the immigration bureau and includes not only the tourists themselves, but also those who visited the country for other purposes (Thailand's Ministry of Tourism operates with the concept of "arrival from abroad"). According to preliminary data of the ministry, China remains the leader of tourist traffic to Thailand in 2017, while Russia is on the first place among the non-Asian countries and the first by annual growth of the number of tourists. The TOP 10 "suppliers" of tourists to Thailand in 2017 are as follows (in brackets there is a change in comparison with the last year): 1. China - 9.92 million (+ 13.23%). 2. Malaysia - 3.30 million (-5.5%). 3. South Korea - 1.71 million (+ 16.49%). 4. Laos - 1.61 million (+ 16.17%). 5. Japan - 1.57 million (+ 9.08%). 6. India - 1.41 million (+ 18.11%). 7. Russia - 1.34 million (+ 22.95%). 8. The United States - 1.06 million (+ 8.35%). 9. Singapore - 1.01 million (4.73%). 10. Great Britain - 1.01 million (+ 0.08%). Also, the Ministry of Tourism and Sport published data on the total expenditure of tourists from different countries during vacation. The leader by this indicator is China and Russia is the second (Russians traditionally rest in Thailand longer than tourists from Asian countries).