Final Tourist Numbers for 2009
Final tourist numbers for 2009 better than expected based on airport passenger arrivals
Airports of Thailand Public Company Limited have now completed statistics for aircraft movements and passenger disembarkation and embarkation for the whole of 2009.
The headline numbers for Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport were 181,522 international aircraft movements (arrivals and departures) a fall of only 3.81% compared to 2008.
Domestic aircraft movements for Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport were 72,455 a 27% increase on 2008.
Obviously the 2008 figures were distorted by the airport closures but in terms of 2009 flights it does not look like the drop was as bad as we expected.
The number of disembarking international passengers for Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport was 14,448,470 compared to 15,049,010 in 2008.
Disembarking domestic passengers at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport were 5,160,317 compared to 3,546,684 in 2008 obviously more domestic flights are routed through Suvarnabhumi airport (Don Muang disembarkations for domestic passengers fell to 1.23 million in 2009 compared to 2.5 million in 2008).
The surprising number is that international passenger disembarkations only fell by 4%.
Taking into account the multiple challenges that confronted the Thai tourism industry in 2009 this is a very positive result.
We saw the recovery start to happen in September and improve on monthly basis to the end of the year.
Source: Airports of Thailand Public Company Limited
In Phuket total international aircraft movements were 16,987 in 2009 only 1.11% down on 2008. Disembarking international passengers were 1,168,659 compared to 1,215,805 in 2008 again only a 4% drop.
Domestic passenger disembarkations were 1,722,316 compared to 1,635,598 in 2008 a 5% increase.
This was a remarkable result considering all the bad news in 2009.
The Thai hotel industry will still find 2010 tough even if international arrivals continue to improve because of the amount of new hotels that will be completed over the next three years.
Source: Airports of Thailand Public Company Limited
