Foreign Tourists Return to Thailand for First Time Since March

(Bloomberg) -- Thailand received more than 1,000 foreign tourists in October, the first set of visitors to the Southeast Asian nation in six months.

Tourists began returning in small numbers under a special long-stay tourist visa unveiled by the government last month, according to data released by Thailand’s tourism ministry Tuesday. The October arrivals compared with 3.07 million foreign visitors during the same month a year ago, and were the first since March, data showed.

While Thailand has relaxed most of its coronavirus measures to allow businesses to fully reopen and some visitors to return, it has retained a nationwide state of emergency to prevent a resurgence in the pandemic. The nation’s ailing tourism industry is struggling to draw visitors as authorities have retained a mandatory 14-day quarantine on arrival amid a surge in confirmed infections worldwide.

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The tourism ministry didn’t detail revenue generated from the foreign visitors and said some of the information may be subject to revisions. Thailand netted more than $60 billion in revenue from about 40 million visitors in 2019, official data show.

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