Despite the paucity of Chinese visitors to Thailand, we still expect 8-10m foreign arrivals for 2022. And if Chinese tourists resume visiting Thailand en-masse before YE22, airlines will turn around faster than we currently assume. We also anticipate the reopening of tourism-related businesses, the return of work-at-office policies, and new routes on mass-transit systems to fuel mass-transit ridership growth through 2023.
Airlines to report losses, but could still be a good entry point
Only a tiny number of Chinese tourists are visiting (due to strict quarantine rules in China), but foreign arrivals hit 521k persons in May (a multiple YoY jump and up 78% QoQ), equal to 19% of the May 2019 number. We estimate 700k arrivals for June. Given the sustained strong demand recovery, 2022 foreign arrivals are likely hit 8-10m persons, even assuming that China’s zero-COVID policy persists. And if Beijing were to lift re-entry quarantine rules before YE22, a further 300-500k persons/month may enter Thailand on top of our current assumption.