Thailand remains on track to attract 10 million tourists this year, although Americans are the only Westerners to make it into the top five visitor groups.
Tourism and Sports Minister Pipat Ratchakitprakarn said the top five groups arriving by air were, in order, Indians, Russians, South Koreans, Singaporeans and Americans. As expected, overland arrivals were led by Malays, Laotians, Cambodians, Vietnamese and Indonesians.
As of November 19, just over 8.2 million foreign arrivals had been recorded, although the majority of land crossings were made by migrant workers.
Regardless of border crossing, Malaysians top the list with 1.45 million, Indians with 780,836, Singaporeans with 431,510, Laotians with 391,446 and Vietnamese with 382,075. All the tourists together spent about 281.1 billion baht.
The influx of Americans is helping Thai-French Petanque Club Pattaya boost revenue as they and returning French nationals rent more pitches and drink more while watching the World Cup, the club president said, Somya Boonphan.
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