Impact Of Covid-19 outbreak on tourism business in Thailand targeting Korean tourists

Abstract

The spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) temporarily stops the global travelling which decreases almost 100 percent of the tourists' number. The situation directly affects Thai tourism industry which is one of the significant industries in Thailand that generates large amount of income each year. This is because Thailand is very popular among international tourists, especially Korean tourists, Korea is ranked one of the top five countries base on the number of tourists entering Thailand with more than a year annd Korean tourists spend more than 80,000 million baht each year. There is a variety of services in Thailand for Korean tourists, so during the spread of COVID-19, many businesses in tourism industry faces with severe impact. Thus, this research aims to study the effects of COVID-19 towards Thai tourism businesses which aim at Korean tourists. The research uses an in-depth interview on the related business groups in order to find the effects on and problems faced by, their businesses, and the strategies they use during the crisis. Additionally, the research aims to find the solutions to restore Thai tourism industry after the crisis. The result illustrates that there are different effects toward each type of business, but most of them face with an insufficient income to run the business due to the disease prevention and control measures. Each business has different strategies to cope with the problems, most businesses decide to decrease their cost, such as employees' salary, while trying to increase their income. The tourism industry needs help and support from both government and private sectors on finance and policies which will help them to compete with other countries by increasing public relations and stability in order to accelerate confidence and encourage tourists to return quickly.