Thai travel agents enjoyed a 102% increase in tourist clients for the period 1 to 10 November when compared with the same 10-day period in November 2016.

In its latest appraisal, Thailand’s Association of Thai Travel Agents confirmed its member companies handled 177,902 clients at Bangkok’s two airports for the first 10 days of November.

It signals the start of the high season for Thailand when tour company business spikes.

Since 1 January,  ATTA member companies have provided a meet-and-greet service for 4,974,324 tourists at the two Bangkok airports, up 3.19% over the same period last year.

The top performing market for travel agents was predictably China with 2,955,101 people travelling on pre-paid travel packages. However, it was a decrease of 1% when compared with the same period last year.

Vietnam was the second largest market with 270,136 travellers buying ATTA member services, up 23.54%, while Korea was third with 233,799 tourists, up 60.58%.

Fourth placed India supplied 217,541 an increase of 23.72%,  while Japan in fifth place generated 138,603 trips up 5.98%.

It is likely that the Chinese market will close the year with a market share of 59.41% of all travellers buying pre-paid holidays and handled by ATTA agents.

A decade earlier the market share would have been led by European tour operators followed by those in Japan, Korea and Taiwan.  Now Chinese tour operators dominate the supply chain.