The Thai authorities said on Friday that the list of countries exempt from a visa to travel to the Asian country will be expanded from 57 to 93 from next Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this case, new additions such as Mexico, Colombia and Uruguay, among others, will be included.
On its Facebook page, the Thai Ministry of the Interior <\/strong>pointed out that on July 15 <\/strong>the new list of countries will enter into force that will also extend the allowed stay to a total of 60 days, a measure that seeks to encourage tourism that is still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2023).
Countries such as Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru <\/strong>did not need a visa <\/strong>before the new measure, while the expansion will <\/strong>benefit more Latin <\/strong>American countries such as Panama, Guatemala, Cuba and Ecuador.
In the last year, Thailand <\/strong>has reached visa<\/strong>-free agreements or extension <\/strong>of residence permits with countries such as China, India and Russia in an attempt to revive tourism, which represented between 12 and 20% of its gross domestic product before the pandemic.
In 2023, about 28 million foreign tourists <\/strong>visited Thailand<\/strong>, mainly from Malaysia (4.6 million), China (3.5 million), South Korea (1.66 million), India (1.62 million) and Russia (1.4 million), according to official data.
For this year, the Ministry of Tourism <\/strong>foresees a more robust recovery of the sector with the arrival of about 35 million international tourists.
In 2019, before the pandemic, Thailand <\/strong>touched 40 million tourists, of which Chinese travelers accounted for more than 27% of the total with more than 11 million visitors to the Asian giant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n