Thailand

Visa's Voice of the Consumer Survey (Nov 2021):

• 51% of Thai respondents are likely to take a leisure trip in Thailand in the next year

• 23% are planning to travel overseas in 2022

• 51% of consumers watched travel videos on YouTube, 41% checked out travel sites on social media and 30% took a road trip

• 53% of travellers wants to book safe and quality-assured accommodation, 44% use contactless and digital payments and 42% avoided crowded tourist attractions

• 3 factors to make Thai travellers comfortable to travel again include: being vaccinated (67%), a reduction in the virus (55%) and buying COVID insurance (41%)

• The top 5 overseas destinations for Thai travellers include Japan, China, Australia, South Korea and Canada/ France

• 48% want to travel within a travel bubble, but not in the immediate future

• 33% are keen to travel as soon as possible, when a travel bubble is available

• 19% are not interested in travel bubbles

Booking.com 2022 Travel Predictions (Oct 2021):

• 76% of travelers are looking forward to meeting new people while on vacation

• 80% of travelers find that the journey to a destination is more enjoyable when it feels like part of the trip itself

• 76% of travelers say vacation time will be strictly work-free in the future

• 86% of travelers agree that travel helps their mental and emotional wellbeing more than other forms of self-care

• 74% of travelers agree it’s important that their trip is beneficial to the destination's local community

• 51% are going to do more research into how their tourism spending will affect or improve local communities

• 77% of travelers are now more open to different types of vacations

• 85% of travelers agree that technology will be more important than ever while on vacation

• 79% of travelers believe technology is important for controlling health risks when traveling, with 83% agreeing that technology helps to alleviate their travel anxiety

Agoda Sustainable Travel Trends Survey 2021 (Aug 2021):

• More Thais are most concerned the impact tourism plays on overtourism, deforestation for tourism, and energy waste or inefficiency

• 30% of Thais believe they themselves are most responsible, followed by tourism authorities (25%), and governments (24%), for making changes within the sustainable travel space

• Thais pledge to manage their own waste by using less single-use plastics (53%), during travel period, always look for eco-friendly accommodation (37%), and switch the air conditioners and lights off when leaving room (31%) when they travel in the post COVID period

• Practices that are considered most helpful to travel sustainably by Thais are accommodations using renewable energy or water sources (31%), reusable amenities (20%), and key cards to power electricity in an accommodation (15%)

• When asked what practices associate with sustainability, 47% considered use of renewable resources, 41% animal conservation, and 35% use of natural cleaning products

• The additional measures to help make travel more sustainable are easy identification of sustainable/eco-friendly travel options, financial incentives to accommodation providers who maximize energy efficiency, and limiting use of single-use plastic in airlines or accommodations.