The Thai embassy told Gulf News that it processed more than 100 visa applications per day before the Eid al-Fitr festival, which saw a few thousand Qatari nationals travel to the Southeast Asian nation. With the country’s political crisis now well behind it, Thai officials expect a similar performance during Eid al-Adha, as outbound tourism form Qatar resumes growth.
In 2013, about 39,000 tourists from Qatar visited Thailand, and the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) sees huge potential in the Qatari market which grew 36% last year.
In order to promote travel to the country, the Thai Embassy in Doha will hold a number of cultural events in Doha in the coming months. These include a culinary festival at the end of this month and Loy Kratong Festival in October.
Numbers will get a further boost from new air passengers services between Doha and Thailand.
Qatar Airways is to launch direct services to Thailand’s popular island destination, Phuket, on 26 October. The new service will be operated by a two-class Airbus A330, with capacity for 260 passengers. The new direct services will replace Qatar’s earlier services to Phuket which linked via Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The Airline is also seeing increased demand on routes from Doha to Thailand, and is also upping frequencies to Bangkok from three to four flights per day, as of 16 December.
Source: Travel Daily