Kasikorn Research Center now expects 31.36 million foreign arrivals to Thailand in 2026. In April it forecast 30 million. The bank’s research house published the revision on 14 August, and the year it describes is still a down year — 4.9% below 2025 — only a shallower one than it projected in spring.
The revision landed days after the Ministry of Tourism and Sports reported the strongest week of the summer. Between 2 and 8 August, 636,769 foreign tourists entered the country, 12.24% more than the week before, an average of 90,967 a day. Minister of Tourism and Sports Surasak Phancharoenworakul announced the figures on 10 August.
Confirmed figures and source dates
The Ministry of Tourism and Sports weekly report for 2–8 August 2026, announced 10 August:
- Weekly arrivals: 636,769, up 69,457 (+12.24%) on the prior week
- Near markets: 421,215 (+16.11%); long-haul markets: 215,554 (+5.39%)
- Year to 8 August: 19,147,012 arrivals, down 2.93% on the same period of 2025
- Tourism receipts year to 8 August: 927.7 billion baht, down 2.90%
K-Research, published 14 August 2026:
- 2026 arrivals forecast: 31.36 million (−4.9% year on year), raised from the 30 million it forecast in April
- 2026 tourism revenue forecast: 1.54 trillion baht (−3.2%)
- Average spend: 49,000 baht per person per trip, up 2%
The ministry attributes the August jump to school summer holidays in China and long holidays in Japan — Mountain Day and the Obon festival. China led the week and grew fastest among the large markets:
Week on week, China rose 20.34%, India 20.15% and Japan 76.57%, while South Korea fell 5.17%.
Who is affected
The forecast describes national demand, and national demand is what fills hotels, rental pools and short-stay calendars. A 2026 that ends 4.9% below 2025 instead of the roughly 9% below that the April forecast implied is a materially different year for anyone whose income depends on occupied nights — hotel operators, owners renting out condos and villas, and developers selling rental-pool products on projected returns.
K-Research also names the weak spots. Indonesian arrivals fell 23.2% between January and July, South Korean outbound travel dropped 5.9% across June and July, and it flags South Korea, Malaysia, India and Indonesia as markets to watch. Its case for a stronger year-end rests on the events calendar — the IMF–World Bank Annual Meetings and the Tomorrowland Thailand festival — and on a possible recovery in Middle East and European travel if geopolitical tensions ease.
What it may mean for Phuket property
Neither release breaks out Phuket, so what follows is Houseviser analysis built on the national figures and on island data already published elsewhere. Phuket recorded 8.8 million arrivals in 2025 by C9 Hotelworks’ count, and the same C9 report — covered here on 12 August — showed island hotels holding rates while occupancy fell 6%, with the loss of Chinese visitors named as a driver. A national August in which Chinese arrivals grow 20% in a week is movement in exactly the market Phuket has been missing, though one summer-holiday week does not establish a trend.
The direction of the revision matters more than its size. Rental income on this island is occupancy times rate, and occupancy has been the weak half of that product since 2025. A shallower national decline puts a floor under the pessimistic scenarios an owner might have priced in this spring. It does not turn 2026 into a growth year: fewer people are visiting Thailand than last year, and last year was itself 7.23% below 2024 — the ministry counted 32,974,321 arrivals in 2025 against 35.54 million in 2024.
What remains unknown
Whether the August surge outlasts the Chinese and Japanese school holidays is the open question; the ministry’s weekly series will answer it within a month. Phuket-level arrivals for the first half of 2026 have not been published in either release, so how much of the national pattern reaches the island is not yet measurable. And K-Research’s stronger year-end is a forecast conditioned on events and on geopolitics cooperating — it lists both as assumptions, not facts.
Related guides and data
Current asking prices and rental figures for Phuket are on /prices and in the market report. The guides below cover how rental income actually works for a foreign owner — yields, rental-pool contracts, and the licence a short-stay unit needs.