Impact of Civil Disturbance and Natural Disasters on Tourism in Thailand

 There has been a dramatic impact on tourist arrivals from the events in April and May 2010. We are still confident that arrival numbers will recover the question how long will this take. We have taken the Airports of Thailand International Public Company Limited (AOT) passenger disembarkation numbers for

1. The whole of Thailand (All airports managed by AOT)
2. Bangkok international airports Suvarnabhumi and Dong Muang
3. Phuket International airport

We have analysed the impact of

1. The December 2004 Tsunami
2. The 2008 Lehman Bankruptcy
3. The November 2008 Bangkok airports closures
4. The 2009 Bangkok April Riots
5. The 2010 Bangkok Turmoil

Some of these events were spread close together and others more spread out.

All events apart from the Lehman bankruptcy were local.

International arrivals in Bangkok appeared to take only 6 months to recover from the multiple events of the global financial crisis, the Bangkok airport closures and April 2009 Bangkok riots.

The impact of the 2004 Tsunami was far more severe partly because of the physical caused to many hotel properties and the overall death toll of tourists. Even so the recovery took only 14 months.

The graphs below show the impact of these events on overall numbers and Phuket.