{"id":487227,"date":"2026-05-16T05:26:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T05:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/487227\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T05:26:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T05:26:16","slug":"southeast-asias-second-largest-economy-blames-iran-war-for-tourism-downturn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/487227\/","title":{"rendered":"Southeast Asia’s second largest economy blames Iran war for tourism downturn"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Southeast<\/p>\n

\nThe skyline is photographed during sunset in Bangkok, Thailand, July 3, 2023. Photo by Reuters\t<\/p>\n

Thailand said its tourism industry weakened sharply toward the end of the quarter due to air travel disruptions linked to the Iran war.\t<\/p>\n

Tourist arrivals fell 1.8% in February before dropping 8.7% in March.<\/p>\n

The Southeast Asia’s second largest economy received 9.31 million international visitors in the first quarter of 2026, indicating a slight 2.3% contraction compared to a year earlier.<\/p>\n

Bank of Thailand Assistant Governor Chayawadee Chai-anant said tourism arrivals from Gulf countries dropped to nearly zero in March after attacks from Iran led to airport closures across the region.<\/p>\n

Tourism from Malaysia also softened during the quarter, as rising fuel prices discouraged road travel into Thailand.<\/p>\n

The decline in tourism added pressure on the economy, given the sector’s importance to employment and consumption.<\/p>\n

Economists also warned that disruptions related to air travel could continue to weigh on tourism activity in the coming months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The skyline is photographed during sunset in Bangkok, Thailand, July 3, 2023. Photo by Reuters Thailand said its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,179,18,19,17,4434],"class_list":{"0":"post-487227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-southeast-asia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116582599675092046","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}