Thailand's Tourism Authority (TAT) expects about 250,000 Chinese tourists to visit the country during this year's combined Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day golden week holiday — September 25 to October 7, a 13-day span — generating an estimated 11.5 billion baht in tourism revenue. According to Thai outlets including the Bangkok Post and The Star, citing TAT figures, the forecast represents a roughly 24% year-on-year increase in visitor numbers and a roughly 37% increase in revenue, both sizeable gains seen as a clear sign of recovery in the Chinese tourist market after a period of weakness. TAT said it would use the Mid-Autumn and National Day holidays as an opportunity to intensify marketing in the Chinese market, aiming to further expand Chinese arrivals during the traditional second-half peak season and benefit related industries including hotels, dining, retail and transport.

Over the past year or so, Chinese travelers' appetite for visiting Thailand had weakened noticeably. According to earlier reporting by Nikkei Chinese and other outlets, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Thailand fell by roughly 30% year on year in the first four months of 2025, while total foreign arrivals for the year also dropped by around 5%. The industry has generally attributed this to a combination of factors: first, the "Wang Xing case" earlier this year, in which Chinese actor Wang Xing was lured near the Thailand-Myanmar border and forced to work at a telecom-fraud scam compound — an incident that, once widely reported, dealt a significant blow to Chinese travelers' confidence in Thailand's public security, with safety concerns becoming the single biggest factor weighing on Chinese travel intentions; and second, a period of baht appreciation, compounded by rising airfares and hotel costs on China-Thailand routes and the erosion of group-tour scale advantages, which further pushed up the real cost of visiting Thailand. The combination of these unfavorable factors led to an unusually prolonged downturn in Thailand's inbound tourism market.

This year's Mid-Autumn Festival falls on September 25-27, just three working days before the National Day golden week of October 1-7, prompting many Chinese travelers to take "three days off to get 13" — bridging the two traditional holidays into a single 13-day break that substantially widens the travel window. Analysts say the average length of stay for Chinese tourists in Thailand could extend from roughly eight days previously to about 13 days, and with the holiday stretched out, tourists' spending and experiences on the ground are expected to be correspondingly fuller — seen as an important opportunity to boost peak-season performance for a Thai tourism industry driven largely by sightseeing, shopping and dining.

A weaker baht against the yuan is one important factor behind the expected rebound in Chinese visitors. Reports say the baht has recently depreciated by about 9.8% against the yuan, to roughly 4.93 baht per yuan, improving Thailand's price competitiveness for Chinese tourists and lowering the relative cost of travel, shopping and spending there. At the same time, direct flight capacity between China and Thailand continues to expand: for the 2025-2026 winter flight season, Thai Airways is reported to be stepping up investment in the Chinese market, resuming routes to Changsha, Chongqing and Xiamen at seven flights a week each, while Wuhan and Shenzhen are being added to its network for the first time — boosting capacity to support the expected holiday travel surge. Beyond Thai Airways, several Chinese carriers are also expanding China-Thailand routes, with Shenzhen-Phuket flights increased to four times a week, pointing to a gradual recovery and expansion in demand across the China-Thailand aviation market that lays the groundwork for further passenger growth during future holidays and over the full year.

To capitalize on this wave of holiday travel demand, TAT has launched a marketing campaign themed "Amazing Thailand, Mid-Autumn 'Nihao Month' 2026," rolling out a series of flagship initiatives aimed at further stoking Chinese tourists' enthusiasm for visiting during the Mid-Autumn and National Day holidays. Notably, during this year's earlier Lunar New Year holiday (February 15-23, nine days), Thailand also welcomed about 250,000 Chinese tourists, making China its largest source market for that period — a figure nearly matching the expected turnout for this Mid-Autumn/National Day holiday. But since this holiday runs 13 days, about one and a half times as long as the Lunar New Year break, average length of stay and spending per visitor are expected to be considerably fuller, which helps explain why the projected revenue increase (37%) significantly outpaces the projected increase in visitor numbers (24%). Still, Thailand's inbound tourism market has not had an easy year overall: official Thai statistics show that from January 1 to August 29 this year, Thailand received about 20.81 million foreign visitors, down roughly 2.97% year on year, though tourism revenue over the same period still reached about 1.007 trillion baht — reflecting a structural shift in which "visitor growth is slowing but spending quality is rising." Chinese tourists, at about 3.52 million arrivals over the same period, remained Thailand's largest source market by a wide margin, underscoring that China's importance to Thai tourism has not diminished — and lending some real-world grounding to the expected rebound in this Mid-Autumn/National Day travel forecast, rather than it being merely a marketing projection.

Analysts note that Thailand's tourism sector has this year also had to contend with a combination of headwinds, including a period of baht appreciation, the Thailand-Cambodia border dispute and localized flooding, which contributed to an unusually large drop in overall visitor numbers. This concentrated release of holiday demand around Mid-Autumn and National Day, combined with the price advantage from a softer baht and expanded direct-flight capacity, could help Thailand's tourism sector achieve a degree of recovery in the second half of the year. If the projected 250,000 arrivals and 11.5 billion baht in revenue materialize, it would provide a much-needed boost to a Thai tourism industry under pressure, while further cementing China's position as Thailand's largest source market. This year also marks the 51st anniversary of China-Thailand diplomatic relations, a period that has seen a marked increase in people-to-people exchanges in culture, education and trade between the two countries; as one of the most direct links between their peoples, tourism's recovery is widely seen as an important barometer of the "temperature" of China-Thailand relations. Analysts add that if Thailand can use this holiday rebound as an opportunity to keep improving its public-security image, stabilize exchange-rate expectations and sustain growth in flight capacity, it could support a more solid recovery in the Chinese tourist market through the rest of this year and into next, underpinning deeper bilateral economic and people-to-people ties; but should another security incident on the scale of the Wang Xing case occur, this rebound could once again be derailed — a risk that keeps Thailand's tourism industry cautiously, rather than fully, optimistic.