The number of tourists arriving in Thailand rose for the fifth straight month in February, up 29.6 per cent from a year earlier, continuing to recover after an army coup last May ended months of political unrest.

Foreign tourist numbers were 2.69 million in February and arrivals are exacted to be robust for the rest of the year, Krisada Chinavicharana, director general of the Finance Ministry’s Fiscal Policy Office, told a briefing on Monday.

In the first 13 days of March, the number of foreign tourists jumped 27.6 per cent from a year earlier to about 1.1 million, he added.

In January, tourist arrivals rose 16.3 per cent from a year earlier to 2.65 million, according to the Department of Tourism.

Tourism in Thailand was up 16% in January, just one year after the “Bangkok shutdown”. According to the Department of Tourism, the country received 2.65 million international tourists in January, up from 2.28 million the same period last year.

The increase in tourists not only surpassed last January’s numbers, but 2013’s numbers as well. During the same period that year, Thailand received just 2.31 million tourists.

Although Thailand saw an increase of tourists from many countries, it saw a dramatic decrease in Russian visitors. With the rouble seeing a tremendous drop in value, travelers are forced to stay home. Russian arrivals plummeted 45.7% to just 145,605 visitors in January. In previous months, Thailand had been seeing a year-on-year declines of 27%, 23% and 21%.

While the number of Russian visitors is on the decline, the country saw an influx of Chinese visitors. In December, the country saw an 86.5% year-on-year increase in Chinese visitors. Numbers soared again in January with 560,399 arrivals from the mainland.

Asean visitors also increased 49.3% to 622,277 year-on-year. Thailand saw just a 12% increase in Asean visitors in December and a 9% increase overall for 2014.

The country also saw a few markets rebound, including Hong Kong and Taiwan. Visitors were up 89.3% and 53.9% respectively. In 2014, those two markets plummeted 18% and 22% respectively.

The number of Japan visitors declined in December, but numbers were positive in January with the number of tourists up 5.8%.

While the increase in tourism is great news for Thailand, European tourism continues to struggle. Due in part to the sharp decline in Russian visitors, European arrivals were down 14.3% in January. Italy and Spain were the only two European countries with increased arrivals at 11.3% and 8.1% respectively. UK arrivals were down 0.5% and German arrivals up just 0.6%.

Just over 10 years after it first opened, the Central Festival Phuket complex is about to expand onto the third corner of the intersection on which it sits.

The site, where the local Aikwanich family’s Tai Naan restaurant used to be, has now been cleared for the B12.7 billion Central West project, and is expected to be completed “by 2017”.

The complex will cover 300,000 square metres and house around 400 stores. Central Pattana pcl (CPL) told The Phuket News today that anchor stores will include CDS, PowerBuy, SuperSports, Central Food Hall, B2S, EATHAI, World Class Attraction and HomeWorks, all Central brands.

There will also be a convention hall, though no details are yet available, along with an amusement park, an aquarium, a world-class ice-skating rink and “a natural forest”.

CPL said the new complex will be “The masterpiece of Phuket [with]a cutting-edge design: A mega world-class design shopping center from Central Group seamlessly combin[ing]three projects with three different concepts together in the best location on Phuket”.

The complex, it added, will become a “must-visit destination … that will attract tourists from around the world”.

The second phase of the complex, Central East, was created at the end of 2012 in an effort to generate traffic and rentals for the ground floor of what was then Homeworks. Despite the B100 million revamp, it still remains quiet compared with its big sister across the bypass, Central Festival.

Thailand’s visitor arrivals surged to a record total of 2,654,634 in January 2015, up by 16.30% over January 2014, according to figures published by the Ministry of Tourism and Sports. This was largely due to a major comeback by all the markets in Asia and the ASEAN region, including the top performers of China, Malaysia, Korea Japan, and India.

Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor Thawatchai Arunyik commented, “This is a clear indication that all our tourism revival strategies have produced excellent results. It is an excellent start to 2015, and we are hoping to maintain the arrivals all through the year.”

“Again, I wish to stress that this is the result of all the hard work exerted by the entire industry, including Thai Airways International, all the airlines flying to Thailand, Airports of Thailand, Immigration Bureau, and the entire private sector including the MICE industry, hotels, tour operators, and guides. All of them deserve credit for this turnaround from what was a difficult and challenging year in 2014.”

Here is a summary of the key results:

Overview: All regions grew well except Europe and Oceania. Visitors from East Asia totalled 1,545,683 (+43.25%), Europe 727,462 (-14.32%), the Americas 122,714 (+1.41%), South Asia 109,440 (+19.14%), Oceania 81,965 (-6.43%), Middle East 55,521 (+31.05%), and Africa 11,849 (+0.75%).

East Asia: East Asian visitor arrivals comprised the biggest market share of all visitors. A total of 1.54 million or 58.23% were from East Asian countries. China ranked the largest source market from East Asia with arrivals of 560,399 (+56.96%). Apart from China, the other top sources of arrivals were Malaysia 279,517 (+92.57%), Korea 153,311 (+13.06%), and Japan 121,926 (+5.43%).

The ASEAN countries in total generated over 622,277 arrivals, with spectacular growth by Malaysia 279,517 (+92.57%), Laos 89,890 (+14.06%), Singapore 69,229 (+49.97%), Vietnam 53,038 (+54.56%), Cambodia 51,605 (+35.51%), Philippines 22,627 (+15.43%), Myanmar 19,287 (+56.56%), and Brunei 1,128 (+43.33%), except Indonesia 35,956 (-13.56%).

Europe: Arrivals declined by 14.32% to 727,462 partly due to the economic situation in the region. However, some European countries showed growth; such as, Germany 81,309 (+0.59%), France 78,391 (+7.81%), East Europe 67,413 (+1.21%), Italy 32,022 (+11.25%), Austria 14,352 (+1.33%), Belgium 10,446 (+1.73%), Spain 9,154 (+8.14%), and Ireland 5,914 (+2.21%)

The Americas: Arrivals from the Americas were up 1.41% to 122,714. The main market, USA increased by 0.59% to 82,036. Arrivals from Canada were up 0.16% to 25,430. Showing considerable promise are Latin American markets; such as, Brazil (+25.03%).

South Asia: Arrivals from South Asia grew by a strong 19.14% to 109,440. India topped the list with arrivals up by 16.62% to 81,716. Other countries also showed good growth; such as, Bangladesh 9,908 (+75.89%), Sri Lanka 4,988 (+1.92%) and Nepal 2,749 (+33.51%), except Pakistan 5,834 (-1.07%).

Oceania: Arrivals from Oceania declined by 6.43% to 81,965 visitors. Australian visitors declined 7.11% to 72,904 and New Zealand (-3.47%) to 8,647.

The Middle East: Arrivals from the Middle East showed good growth of 31.05% to 55,521. UAE visitors were up 114.92% to 7,361 along with Kuwait 7,080(+92.44%), and Saudi Arabia 1,267 (+10.17%).