Pattaya 15th Most Popular Intl Travel Destination

[Evil Penevil]

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.

 

[andycoll]

Well that explains the make up of the crowds on walking street and the clientele of the GoGo bars.

[Thai Spice]

2 hours ago, Evil Penevil said:

 

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

Seems to confirm it's Cheap Charlie destination reputation ?

 

[john luke]

1 hour ago, Thai Spice said:

Seems to confirm it's Cheap Charlie destination reputation ?

 

1.Bangkok is a capital city, Pattaya is not. 

 

It is like comparing London to Windermere. 

[Krapow]

4 hours ago, Evil Penevil said:

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.

There's just so much you could say about that