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Thailand to extend visa incentives to attract more tourists

Xinhua, February 8, 2017 Adjust font size:

Thailand's cabinet on Tuesday agreed to extended its original three-month long visa fee cutting incentives for another six months to August to attract more tourists.

The cabinet decided last November to waive the 1,000 baht (28 U.S. dollars) visa fee and halve the visa-on-arrival costs from 2,000 baht to 1,000 baht for tourists from all countries eligible for visa on arrival from the beginning of last December to the end of February, and now the visa incentives will be extended to Aug. 31, according to Tourism and Sports Minister Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul.

Since Fiji and Papua New Guinea have been eligible for visa on arrival to enter Thailand since late December, thus the number of countries that can enjoy the visa incentives increased to 20 from 18.

China has provided the most tourists for the kingdom for years.

According to Thailand's Ministry of Tourism and Sports, 8.76 million tourists from Chinese mainland, 522,231 tourists from China's Taiwan and 749,694 from China's Hong Kong visited the kingdom in 2016, accounting for 30.78 percent of all foreign tourists. Endit