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Thailand Launches "Nihao Month 2026" to Court 250,000 Chinese Tourists for Golden Week
Reporter 欧亚时报编辑部
The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) officially launched "Nihao Month 2026" on September 15, 2026, the third edition of its "Amazing Thailand Mid-Autumn" campaign series, themed "China and Thailand Are One Family." The previous edition of Nihao Month had marked the 50th anniversary of Thailand-China diplomatic ties, and this year's campaign continues that friendly tone, aiming to leverage the Mid-Autumn Festival and China's National Day "Golden Week" holiday to draw more Chinese travelers to Thailand. TAT projects that during the 13-day Golden Week period from September 25 to October 7, around 250,000 Chinese tourists will visit Thailand, a 24% year-on-year increase, generating an estimated 11.5 billion baht in tourism revenue, up 37% year-on-year.
According to TAT, Nihao Month 2026 is built around four pillars: digital sales conversion through partnerships with Chinese e-commerce and lifestyle platforms, on-the-ground privileges and discounts for Chinese visitors, cultural exchange events, and destination storytelling led by Chinese key opinion leaders (KOLs). The campaign is designed as a complete travel journey — reaching potential visitors while they are still planning their trips in China, continuing through their actual experience in Thailand, and extending afterward through social-media storytelling once they return home, to sustain buzz and secondary word-of-mouth promotion.
On the digital marketing front, TAT has entered a large-scale partnership with Chinese lifestyle platform Meituan, running from September 15 to October 31. With more than 80 million daily active users, Meituan will use consumer data and location-based service (LBS) technology to deliver targeted offers on Thai hotels, restaurants, flights and travel activities to Chinese users, converting online traffic directly into bookings — one of the most commercially significant partnerships in this year's campaign. In addition, mobile payment platforms popular with Chinese tourists, such as Alipay and WeChat Pay, will offer exclusive discounts at participating merchants across Thailand to stimulate spending.
The centerpiece of the cultural-exchange component was the "Amazing Thailand Mid-Autumn Celebration 2026," held on September 25 at One Bangkok. The event brought together prominent Chinese travel and food KOLs and content creators to showcase Thai culture and cuisine through Mid-Autumn-themed activities, with appearances by popular Thai stars Billkin Putthipong Assaratanakul and Pong Nawat Kulrattanarak to amplify the event's visibility and buzz on Chinese social media.
TAT Governor Thapanee Kiatphaibool said Nihao Month 2026 brings TAT's China-market strategy into a more integrated phase. She said Nihao Month "reflects the warmth and friendship between Thailand and China," combining cultural celebration with travel inspiration that speaks directly to the interests of today's Chinese travelers. TAT said it hopes the campaign's continued exposure will extend momentum into the low season and build market energy ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday in January-February 2027, with overall campaign reach projected to exceed 500 million people.
The heightened attention Thai tourism authorities are giving to the "Nihao" campaign series reflects the severe volatility the Chinese tourist market has experienced over the past year and a half. In January 2025, reports that a Chinese actor had been lured to the Thailand border area and trafficked into a scam-center compound across the border in Myanmar spread rapidly on Chinese social media, triggering widespread fear that traveling to Thailand could result in kidnapping and forced labor at scam operations. As a result, roughly 10,000 Thailand bookings were canceled during the 2025 Lunar New Year holiday alone, and Chinese arrivals to Thailand continued to decline afterward — full-year 2025 Chinese arrivals fell to about 4.47 million, a marked contraction compared with pre-pandemic levels that had exceeded ten million. This repeatedly forced TAT and industry bodies to revise down their 2026 Chinese-visitor targets, which fluctuated over the past year between roughly 5 million and 6.7 million.
To rebuild confidence among Chinese travelers, Thailand's Ministry of Tourism and Sports and TAT jointly launched the "Trusted Thailand" certification program on November 13, 2025, awarding a safety certification mark to qualifying hotels, restaurants, malls and attractions. The certification covers basic safety measures such as CCTV coverage and emergency-response readiness, support for secure and transparent payment systems including Alipay and WeChat Pay, multilingual communication and crisis-handling capability, and reliable transport connections — aiming to send a clear signal to international visitors, including Chinese tourists, that traveling in Thailand is safe.
Since the start of 2026, the Chinese tourist market has shown early signs of recovery. According to TAT figures, Thailand welcomed close to 6 million foreign visitors cumulatively between January 1 and February 22, 2026, and Chinese arrival data also showed signs of bottoming out: more than 400,000 Chinese visitors entered in January, up 7.5% month-on-month though still down about 39.6% year-on-year, with Chinese arrivals rising further in February. Industry observers say it is against this backdrop of a still-fragile confidence recovery that Nihao Month 2026 carries the key task of converting the nascent rebound into actual Golden Week visitor numbers and spending.
China has long been one of Thailand's most important inbound source markets, and its spending power and visitor volume carry outsized weight for Thailand's overall tourism revenue. Amid a strengthening baht that pressures Thailand's cost competitiveness and rising competition from destinations such as Vietnam for Chinese travelers, whether Nihao Month 2026 can deliver on its Golden Week targets of 250,000 visitors and 11.5 billion baht will matter not just for this single holiday period, but will also serve as an important indicator of how far Chinese travelers' confidence in Thailand's tourism safety has been restored, and whether Thailand's tourism sector can sustain its recovery momentum.
