Thailand's tourism sector not expected to recover until 2026

Thailand's tourism sector isn’t expected to normalize until 2026, according to the country's National Economic and Social Development Council.

Some analysts had expected tourism to normalize within two years.

Thailand has one of the world's most travel-dependent economies in the world with the travel sector providing jobs for over seven million workers.

Some of the sector's workers may need to find jobs elsewhere, the council said.

Tourism contributed about one-fifth of Thailand's economy before the pandemic. It had nearly 40 million visitors in 2019, generating $60 billion in revenue.

Thailand is gradually reopening some destinations to vaccinated visitors after closing its borders to most foreign tourists in March 2020.

The country's economy would likely contract for the sixth straight quarter in the April-June period as its battles its worst Covid-19 outbreak yet.

Phuket is set to reopen in July, the first of Thailand's tourism destinations to do so.

to followed by 10 others in October, but the government expects only 500,000 visitors this year.

There were 6.7 million who visited Thailand in 2020, almost all in the first three months.

Thailand's unemployment rate has drastically increased, with the jobless reaching 758,000, or 1.96 percent, in the first quarter of 2021, the highest since 2009.