Tourism Volatility and Changes on International Tourist Market Profiles: A Case of Political Instability in Thailand
Abstract (150 Words)
Thailand’s tourism has globally proved its performance on attracting international visitors and been recognised as one of the top tourist destinations. Despite its prolonged situation of political instability caused by severe conflicts between Shinawatra supporters and protestors since 2005, the Kingdom has still shown its constant growth in inbound international tourism to the world. The political instability has been ongoing for over a decade which a number of coinciding crisis events occurred, including People’s Alliance for Democracy’s (PAD), United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship’s (UDD), and People’s Democratic Reform Committee’s (PDRC) riots, dissolutions of parliament, declarations of martial law, coup d’états and terrorism attacks. Pragmatic quantitative research is adopted by observing secondary data from the official statistics and analysing composition changes on different tourist profiles. The key findings reveal volatility of female travellers and leisure market, aging phenomenon of travellers, decline of business travel market, and rises of FITs and repeated visitors.
Tourism Volatility and Changes on International Tourist Market Profiles: A Case of Political Instability in Thailand
Thailand’s tourism has globally proved its performance on attracting international visitors and been recognised as one of the top tourist destinations. Despite its prolonged situation of political instability caused by severe conflicts between Shinawatra supporters and protestors since 2005, the Kingdom has still shown its constant growth in inbound international tourism to the world. The political instability has been ongoing for over a decade which a number of coinciding crisis events occurred, including People’s Alliance for Democracy’s (PAD), United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship’s (UDD), and People’s Democratic Reform Committee’s (PDRC) riots, dissolutions of parliament, declarations of martial law, coup d’états and terrorism attacks. Pragmatic quantitative research is adopted by observing secondary data from the official statistics and analysing composition changes on different tourist profiles. The key findings reveal volatility of female travellers and leisure market, aging phenomenon of travellers, decline of business travel market, and rises of FITs and repeated visitors.