Pattaya 15th Most Popular Intl Travel Destination

[Evil Penevil 7,628]

Pattaya is the 15th most popular travel destination in the world, according to Mastercard's Global Destination Cities Index for 2019.  For the fourth straight year,  Bangkok ranked as number one with 22.78 million international overnight visitors in 2018.  Phuket placed 14th with 9.89 million, one notch above Pattaya with 9.44 million.

Thailand is the only country to have three destinations among the top 20.  The Mastercard Index covers 200 destinations worldwide. Whatever Thai authorities are doing to promote tourism to Thailand, it seems to be working.

There's a lot of really interesting information in the report about tourist spending in Pattaya, the importance of tourism to the local economy and the productivity of Thai workers in Pattaya.  The pages below will give you an idea, but for the more complicated stuff,  you need to visit the site.

Please note the Mastercard Index only counts international overnight visitors.  Domestic tourists and "day trippers" of any nationality are excluded. According to a different source, Pattaya had about 6.5 million domestic tourists in 2018, bringing total tourism to nearly 16 million.  It ain't no ghost town.

More detail about the top 20.

Bangkok is the top international destination for mainland Chinese and number three for Japanese visitors.   Pattaya ranks second for Russians and Phuket third.

I excluded a lot of countries under this heading to save space.  It's interesting to note that in 2018, China contributed almost 40% of the international visitors to Bangkok. Last year  China, Russia and South Korea accounted for nearly 50% of the visitors to Pattaya.  The 10 years from 2009 to 2019, the Russian share of the Pattaya tourist market has gone down by nearly half, while the Chinese share has more than doubled.

...

 

Bangkok ranks third in terms of most spending by international visitors, while Phuket ranks 10th.  Pattaya doesn't place in the top 20.

 

[jacko 8,814]

I don't wish to contest these numbers, but boy, you could get some contradiction from many. But all they see is less. Less westerners... the numbers all seem to be about more Chinese.

What is the source of all this data? Surely not simply Mastercard use?

Not good for the environmentalists. 

 

[yorta2 693]

I don't have a MasterCard; my bank in Australia only has Visa so, does MasterCard count me?

[Evil Penevil 7,628]

21 hours ago, jacko said:

What is the source of all this data? Surely not simply Mastercard use?

Not good for the environmentalists. 

 

20 hours ago, yorta2 said:

I don't have a MasterCard; my bank in Australia only has Visa so, does MasterCard count me?

Here's a note on Mastercard's methodology  (my bold highlight):

"The Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index ranks 200 cities based on third-party research and proprietary analysis in terms of the number of their total international overnight visitor arrivals and the cross-border spending by these same visitors in the destination cities in 2018, and gives visitor and expenditure growth forecasts.

"Public data is used in deriving the international overnight visitor arrivals and their cross-border spending in each of the 200 destination cities. Forecasts are based upon the weighted average of the national level tourism forecasts and the actual 2019 monthly data at the destination level, which is available to the latest month before release.

"This Index and the accompanying reports are not based on Mastercard volumes or transactional data.

"The Asia Pacific Destinations Index (APDI) is a regional subset of Mastercard’s Global Destination Cities Index (GDCI). More information and the full APDI report can be found here."

EP note:  Mastercard mostly uses official national tourism statistics, but also data from the UN, OECD, World Bank, national central banks and trade and tourism organizations.

[jacko 8,814]

3 hours ago, Evil Penevil said:

EP note:  Mastercard mostly uses official national tourism statistics, but also data from the UN, OECD, World Bank, national central banks and trade and tourism organizations.

.... if the Bangkok figures are taken from TAT  numbers, well I can only say they have been cynically regarded of late. 

But there are some very apparent correct determinations. 

 

On 12/21/2019 at 4:12 PM, Evil Penevil said:

Bangkok is the top international destination for mainland Chinese and number three for Japanese visitors.   Pattaya ranks second for Russians and Phuket third.