Tourist Migration from Former Soviet States to Thailand: Current Trends and Development Prospects

Abstract

Introduction. The article treats tourism as a form of temporary cross-border migration and examines how visitors from former Soviet states have shaped Thailand’s tourism landscape across pre-pandemic growth, the COVID-19 collapse, and a robust, uneven recovery. It focuses on how visa regimes, flight connectivity, payment channels, and geopolitical shocks condition volumes, profiles, and destinations within Thailand. Goals. The paper aims to identify current trends and development prospects of tourist migration from former Soviet states to Thailand; profile socio-demographic and spatial patterns; and estimate the economic contribution of key markets (notably Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine). Materials and methods. A mixed-methods design combines quantitative analysis of official Thai tourism statistics (2014-2024, with early-2025 where available) by nationality, province and visitor profile; a targeted online survey of Russian, Kazakh and Ukrainian visitors to derive per-diem expenditure and length of stay; policy and visa document review; and macroeconomic benchmarking (GDP). A tourism-contribution formula aggregates per-capita spend over stay length and arrivals to approximate direct GDP shares. Results. Tourist inflows from former Soviet states collapsed in 2020-2021 and rebounded by 2023 to roughly pre-pandemic levels, with Russia remaining the bellwether, Kazakhstan emerging as the second growth pole, and Ukraine’s outbound travel constrained by conflict. The age profile centers on 25-44 with a slight female majority, and travel concentrates in coastal hubs — especially Phuket and Pattaya — though independent travel is widening the footprint to secondary provinces. Estimated direct GDP effects are material — on the order of one percent driven chiefly by Russian visitors — while policy levers (visa facilitation, frictionless payments, flight capacity) and risks (sanctions, exchange-rate volatility) shape near-term prospects. Strategic recommendations include maintaining facilitative entry, diversifying origin markets, encouraging dispersal beyond saturated hubs, and embedding sustainability and risk management into destination strategy.