Sector Stats
The government and private sector stakeholders have been pro-active in marketing the merits of the Thai tourism sector around the world with a string of promotional campaigns. As a result, the travel and tourism sector has grown to become one of the country’s most productive and sustainable industries, contributing a total of $72bn towards the economy in 2014, according to data from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC). The council ranked the industry as the fourth-greatest contributor to the Thai economy behind retail, agriculture and automotive manufacturing, and ahead of the mining, education, financial services, banking and chemicals manufacturing sectors. When including its direct, indirect and induced GDP impact, travel and tourism generated 19.3% of Thailand’s GDP in 2014, nearly double the 11.2% total contribution to GDP from chemicals manufacturing and nearly four times the size of the mining sector’s GDP contribution of 5.2%. Of this, $32bn of the sector was attributed to business directly related to the industry, with indirect and induced activities accounting for the remaining $40bn. Travel and tourism is also an important employer in the country, generating a total of 5.4m direct, indirect and induced jobs in 2014, making it the second-largest employer by sector after agriculture, which had a 14.1% share of total employment.