BANGKOK, THAILAND – A new analysis showed that Thailand’s tourism income flowed overwhelmingly into a handful of hotspots, leaving most provinces with only a small share of the money.
2.86 trillion baht, but sharply uneven
Former Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) governor Yuthasak Supasorn put Thailand’s total tourism income in 2025 at about 2.86 trillion baht.
He based his comments on a statistical and economic analysis using monthly and provincial data that highlighted a structural imbalance in the system.
Top provinces take over 70% of revenue
The five highest-earning provinces – Bangkok, Phuket, Chon Buri, Surat Thani and Chiang Mai – generated a combined 2.01 trillion baht, or 70.25% of nationwide tourism income.
The concentration was even clearer among the top ten, which together received 81.34% of all tourism income, while the remaining 67 provinces had to share 18.66%.
Bangkok versus the bottom of the table
Bangkok alone earned 899.368 billion baht, equal to 1,921 times the tourism income of Amnat Charoen, which ranked 77th with just 468 million baht.
Even Phuket, with 540 billion baht in income, outperformed the combined total of the 50 provinces at the lower end of the ranking, according to the analysis.
Visitor numbers less unequal than the money
An inequality measure, the Gini coefficient, showed that the distribution of visitor numbers, at 0.55, was already unequal but still in a moderate range, according to Yuthasak.
For income, however, the value jumped to 0.82, an extremely high level, which in his view meant that travellers were more spread out, but the money stayed concentrated in a few places.
Foreigners drive income, domestic tourists barely register
The assessment indicated that many people visited secondary destinations but spent little there, often because they only stopped for day trips or short visits that generated limited local value.
An econometric model in the study estimated the yield per foreign visitor at around 40,000 baht, while the coefficient for a Thai tourist was “close to zero”, which Yuthasak said meant that the number of foreign visitors largely determined a province’s prosperity.
“The coefficient for a Thai tourist was close to zero, which shows that, in practice, foreign visitors decide the level of prosperity a province can reach.”
said Yuthasak Supasorn, former TAT governor.
Per-capita yield exposes provincial gaps
On a yield basis, average revenue per visitor in Phuket stood at 38,651 baht, compared with about 16,451 baht in Krabi and around 15,801 baht in Bangkok.
At the bottom of the list, Nong Bua Lamphu recorded just 1,246 baht per visitor and Amnat Charoen about 1,577 baht, underscoring the divide between island hotspots and inland provinces.
South and capital dominate, Northeast lags
Regionally, the South held the largest market share at 33.6%, driven by Phuket and other island destinations, while Bangkok alone accounted for 31.4%.
The 20 provinces in the Northeast together captured only 4.1% of the tourism market, despite having the country’s largest population base, a figure that has fuelled renewed debate on fairer regional participation.
International models and four proposals for change
Yuthasak pointed to examples from Japan, Italy and France, such as Japan’s campaigns to boost regional areas, Italy’s “Albergo Diffuso” concept of distributed hotels in villages, and France’s policies to steer travel via rail links and curb short-term rentals in major cities.
For Thailand, he proposed four steps: improving connectivity and intermodal links between major and secondary cities, offering tax or cash-back incentives for overnight stays in the ten weakest provinces, upgrading community-based accommodation under a premium model, and strengthening domestic booking platforms like TAGTHAi so more income stayed with local providers.