Growth in the tourism sector has slowed, partly due to the crackdown on inbound zero-dollar tour packages, the Bureau of Macroeconomic Policy reported. The slower growth was partly fallout from the government's efforts to stop zero-dollar tours, the bureau said. Zero-dollar tour services offered cheap packages to tourists, mostly Chinese, and some illegal operators would make large profits by taking them to associated shops and encouraging them to buy additional tour services they also operated during their stay. The bureau said that in the first nine months of this year, 24.82 million foreign tourists visited Thailand. Tourist arrivals slowed appreciably at three main airports - Don Mueang, Phuket and Suvarnabhumi - in October after the zero-dollar crackdown started in late August and intensified.

Source: Bangkok Post November 14, 2016 06:01 UTC