หัวหน้าโครงการ: Sergey Ryazantsev
ระยะเวลา: มกราคม 2568 – ธันวาคม 2568
Introduction
Before the pandemic, tourists from Russia and its post-Soviet neighbours already formed one of Thailand’s largest long-haul markets, peaking at roughly 1.2 million Russian arrivals in 2019. Border closures in 2020–2021 collapsed this flow to fewer than 31 000 visitors in 2021 and inflicted severe losses on local businesses that had grown around a thriving Russian-speaking clientele.
Re-opening unleashed a dramatic rebound: 435 000 Russians returned in 2022, 1.48 million in 2023, and a record 1.745 million in 2024, while arrivals from Kazakhstan surged almost 190 % year-on-year to 170 000 in 2023. The drivers extend beyond pent-up demand. Europe’s air-space bans, Thailand’s visa-on-arrival extensions, and the pull of well-established Russian-speaking enclaves in Phuket, Pattaya and Bangkok have redirected leisure, long-stay and even “snow-bird” migration streams eastwards.
This project, launched in January 2025 at Mahidol University’s Institute for Population and Social Research (IPSR), asks who these new-wave tourists are, how they circulate and spend, and what their presence means for Thailand’s post-COVID recovery, local communities and policy. It is scheduled to run for twelve months, with fieldwork, modelling and policy translation culminating in Q4 2025.
Objectives
The study pursues an integrated set of aims:
- Socio-demographic lens – profile age, gender, family status, origin region, travel motivation and the mediating role of diaspora networks to help Thai destinations fine-tune products and services
- Economic lens – quantify direct spending, multiplier effects and sectoral impacts (accommodation, F&B, retail, real-estate, medical tourism), adapting Philip Martin’s migration-impact formula to estimate GDP, jobs and fiscal revenue generated by this market.
- Policy & institutional lens – assess how visa regimes, travel facilitation, local regulations and community responses enable or constrain these flows, and design recommendations that maximise benefits while mitigating congestion, labour-market frictions and real-estate inflation.
Cross-cutting themes include gender balance, the “tourist-to-resident” continuum, and resilience to geopolitical or currency shocks.
Target group
Primary focus is on short- and long-stay leisure travellers from Russia (85 % of the cohort) and fast-growing Central-Asian markets (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan) who concentrate overwhelmingly in Phuket, Pattaya/Chonburi and Bangkok. Within this population the project distinguishes:
- Package-tour families (1–2 weeks, resort-centred).
- Digital-nomad and “snow-bird” retirees (3–6 months, often property renters or buyers).
- Visiting-friends-and-relatives (VFR) travellers anchored by existing Russian-speaking communities.
- Health-tourism and wellness seekers, a niche but high-spending subset drawn by Thai medical and spa services.
Segmenting the market allows granular policy and marketing strategies—e.g., Russian-language health-care packages for long-stay retirees versus eco-tourism offers for younger Central-Asian visitors.
Methods
A mixed-methods design underpins the inquiry:
- Statistical analysis of Ministry of Tourism & Sports arrival micro-data and CIS outbound statistics (2015-2025) to chart temporal, geographic and demographic trends.
- Anonymised telecom mobility mapping—foreign-SIM roaming logs visualised with GIS heat maps—to reveal intra-national dispersal, length of stay and concentration hot-spots
- Economic-impact modelling—modified Philip Martin framework using input-output multipliers (1.5) to translate tourist outlays into GDP, employment and fiscal effects, including scenarios for currency or sanctions shocks
- Field observations in Phuket, Pattaya and Bangkok to document the density of Russian-language businesses, signage and community anchors, building a qualitative geography of the “Russian-speaking economy”.
- Semi-structured interviews & focus groups with tourists, expatriates, Thai officials and local entrepreneurs to capture motivations, satisfaction and tensions (e.g., informal work or taxi competition).
- Content analysis of Russian-language media, travel blogs and social platforms (2020-2024) to track discourse shifts from pandemic frustration to post-re-opening enthusiasm.
Output and expected result
By December 2025 the project will deliver:
- Comprehensive final report combining updated 2025 data, interactive maps and policy scenarios.
- Two peer-reviewed journal articles—one already accepted on migration-tourism linkages; a second (in preparation) on the Russian-speaking service economy in Thai resorts
- Policy brief series for Thai ministries on visa design, community-engagement mechanisms and diversification strategies to reduce over-dependence on any single market
- Open-access data visualisations (arrival dashboards, heat maps of tourist mobility) for planners and destination managers.
- Scenario toolkit quantifying the macro-economic and local-infrastructure implications of alternative visitor trajectories (e.g., a 20 % ruble depreciation, or permanent 90-day visa-free entry).
- Stakeholder workshops in Phuket and Pattaya to co-create solutions for congestion, labour compliance and real-estate pressures, ensuring research translates into practice.
Preliminary analysis already shows that Russian/CIS tourists spent about USD 2.5–3 billion (THB 80–100 bn) in 2024, supporting an estimated 30 000–40 000 Thai jobs and contributing USD 4-4.5 billion to GDP when multipliers are applied, but also intensifying infrastructure strain in Phuket. By integrating such evidence with stakeholder dialogue, the final outputs will equip Thai authorities and businesses to channel this high-impact market toward resilient, community-friendly growth.
