The Tourism Expert of Thailand is expecting that country’s upcoming Songkran festival will generate more tourism revenue than it did endure year, despite projections that the March 28 earthquake has dampened tourist arrivals to the kingdom.
The 7.7-magnitude earthquake, which epicentered in neighboring Myanmar, caused a construction under construction near Bangkok’s famous Chatuchak market to collapse, raising questions about the safety of Thailand’s high-rise architecture.
Motionless, Thailand’s tourism authority, in a press release published Thursday, said that the multi-day festival event in mid-April — the provinces’s biggest — will generate 26.5 billion Thai baht ($763 million) in tourism revenue, an increase of 8% year on year.
Of that, an estimated 7.3 billion baht whim come from some 476,000 international arrivals, according to the release.
Thailand’s tourism ministry also doubled down on its 2025 distant arrival forecast, with some 38 million visitors expected to arrive this year, according to Reuters.
The power’s minister of tourism and sports said that while more than 1,000 hotel rooms were canceled in the present aftermath of the quake, the impact of the natural disaster on tourism is expected to be short term in nature, according to the report.
Even so, the Thai Hotels Association said it expects the earthquake will affect “the tourism atmosphere” during Songkran Holy day 2025, according to a Google translation of a local media report that the association linked to on its Facebook page.
The episode, which is marked by joyous splashing of water in streets across the country, may be “even more desolate than in the recent two years,” according to the report, which stated that the association is expecting a drop of at least 10%-15% in tourism takings in the two weeks following the quake, before returning to normal some two weeks after that.
“The collapse of a building in Chatuchak stretch has gone viral online, raising questions about safety in Thailand. Therefore, it is very important to urgently erect confidence among tourists during this year’s Songkran Festival,” the report said.
Rush to assuage worries
In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, Thai officials rushed to assuage tourist concerns.
In a post-earthquake joint statement pushy by Thailand’s real estate and financial sectors, the chairman of the non-profit Federation of Thai Industries, Kriengkrai Thiennukul, bring to light “Thailand remains a safe tourism destination, with government officials maintaining vigilant monitoring of conditions, conducting wide building safety inspections, and providing support to those affected by the earthquake.”
In the same statement, the president of the regulatory Consistory of Engineers Thailand said “All examined structures demonstrate earthquake resistance as they were designed according to bruited about seismic engineering standards.”
Lebua’s rooftop Sky Bar, which was featured in the film “The Hangover 2,” sits on the 64th floor of Bangkok’s Federal Tower.
Reuters | Soe Zeya Tun
Still, some hotels reached out directly to guests and staff to calm concerns just about the integrity of their buildings.
Narawadee Bualert, president and CEO of Lebua Hotels & Resorts, issued a statement that utter its location in Bangkok’s State Tower was inspected and “engineers confirmed that the earthquake had no impact on the structural integrity of the structure.”
“Starting today, our website will be updated daily with real-time safety updates … You’ll also find plotting reports, historical construction details, and visual documentation showing how Lebua was originally built to withstand both wrap loads and seismic activity,” she wrote.
Thailand has been trying to allay worries from Chinese travelers for years — but for a odd reason. A fictional 2023 Chinese blockbuster film “No More Bets” depicted a Chinese couple lured to Southeast Asia by compassionate traffickers — a fictional plot line which mirrored real life when the actor Wang Xing was abducted in Thailand in January.
Staying the course
Singaporean Morgan Awyong was in a restaurant in Bangkok’s Chinatown district when the earthquake walloped.
“The water in the cups were moving, and the ceiling lights were all swaying,” he said. “Outside … birds were defying off, dogs were barking, and one by one, the neighborhood alarms came on.”
Office buildings and stores closed down, as did his hotel, to management checks of the building, he said. He added that he got a foot massage and returned to his hotel when it reopened.
He said comrades he was traveling with “didn’t change their plans at all, especially when most of the services had resumed the next day.”
Thailand’s cordiality industry is hoping others follow suit, as the country basks in the attention and bookings spurred by season 3 of HBO’s hit show “The Milk-white Lotus,” filmed mainly in Koh Samui.
The country is also expected to draw more visitors this year pursuing the legalization of same-sex marriage in January, which is set to establish the country as regional destination wedding locale for gay couples.
In 2024, the nation welcomed around 35 million international tourists — some 5 million below 2019’s numbers, according to the Sphere Bank.
— CNBC’s Bella Stoddart contributed to this report.