Thailand is targeting 25 million foreign tourists for the whole year, with Chinese visitors seen at 5 million, it said in a statement released on Sunday, which cited figures from January 1 to June 25.
The Southeast Asian country, for years one of Asia's most popular travel destinations, received a record of nearly 40 million foreign tourists in pre-pandemic 2019 before authorities imposed two years of crippling Covid-19 curbs.
The tourism sector, a key source of Thailand's jobs and growth, picked up in 2022 with 11.15 million visitors, after most restrictions were removed in the second half of the year.
Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest economy, received 4.12 million visitors in the first five months of 2023, equal to 70% of the total arrivals in 2022.
Foreign arrivals to Indonesia in May were up 9.21% compared to the previous month thanks to international events, data from the statistics bureau showed on Monday.
The Southeast Asian country recorded 945,590 tourist arrivals in May versus 865,810 in April, data showed.
"[The increase] came as there were some events that happened in May, such as the ASEAN summit," Pudji Ismartini, deputy head of Statistics Indonesia, said in a press conference.
She was referring to the meeting of Southeast Asian leaders that was held in the tourism destination, Labuan Bajo in East Nusa Tenggara province.
Malaysia, Australia and Singapore were still the top three source markets, as in the previous two months.
Earlier this year, Indonesia's tourism ministry revised up its target of foreign arrivals in 2023 to 8.5 million visitors from 7.4 million following positive results in the first quarter.
