Even Celebrities Abducted: "Too Scared to Visit"?Thailand, the Shaken Tourism Giant

7% Drop in Foreign Tourists Last Year
Crime and Conflict Likely Contributing Factors
Record Number of Tourists Flock to Vietnam

The number of foreign tourists visiting Thailand, the largest tourist destination in Southeast Asia, declined by more than 7% last year.

Tourists are sightseeing at Wat Pho Temple in Bangkok, Thailand. Photo by Shin Hwa Yonhap News Agency

According to Bloomberg News and the Thai Ministry of Tourism and Sports on January 2 (local time), approximately 33 million foreign tourists visited Thailand last year, a 7.2% decrease compared to the previous year. Excluding the COVID-19 pandemic period, this marks the first decline in a decade.

The drop in tourist numbers dealt a direct blow to the economy. Revenue generated by foreign tourists amounted to 1.5 trillion baht (about 68.9 trillion won), down 4.7% from the previous year.

The main reason cited for the downturn in Thailand’s tourism industry is the so-called “criminal compound abduction incidents.” Since early last year, there have been a series of cases where Chinese tourists and others were kidnapped in Thailand and taken to criminal compounds in Myanmar and Cambodia. In particular, the abduction and subsequent rescue in January last year of Chinese actor Wang Xing, who had visited Thailand for a drama casting at the end of 2024 and was taken to Myanmar, shocked Chinese society.

Victims like Wang Xing were reportedly forced to participate in online fraud or voice phishing schemes at large-scale criminal compounds operated by Chinese criminal organizations. As a result, Chinese tourists have chosen other Southeast Asian destinations over Thailand. In fact, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Thailand last year stood at 4.47 million, a 33.6% decrease from the previous year’s 6.7 million. In contrast, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Vietnam increased by 44% (3.53 million) from January to August last year, indicating that travelers opted for destinations such as Vietnam instead of Thailand.

Additionally, continued security concerns-including clashes along the Cambodian border in July and again last month, which resulted in over 100 deaths-appear to have influenced the decline. Furthermore, the strong Thai baht made travel to Thailand relatively more expensive for foreign tourists, further impacting the tourism industry. The value of the baht against the US dollar rose by about 9.4% over the past year.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand aims to recover from last year’s slump by attracting a total of 36.7 million foreign visitors this year, including restoring the number of Chinese tourists to the 2024 level of 6.7 million.

Meanwhile, Vietnam’s tourism industry experienced its best year ever. According to the local media outlet VN Express, about 21.5 million foreign tourists visited Vietnam last year, a 22% increase from the previous year. Nguyen Trung Khanh, Chairman of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, stated, “The visa exemption policy for 39 countries has been the key to our success in the tourism industry.”

In the case of Malaysia, 28.2 million tourists visited between January and August 2025, a 14.5% increase from the same period the previous year. The Philippines, however, saw a decline, with the number of foreign tourists from January to November reaching only 4.7 million, down about 3%, following a series of incidents involving Korean and Japanese tourists. In particular, the number of Korean and Chinese tourists visiting the Philippines dropped significantly.