Nearly 90,000 Emiratis visit Thailand in July and August, spending an estimated Dh851m

Dubai: Thailand welcomed more than 89,000 Emirati tourists in July and August, with UAE visitor numbers rising sharply during the peak summer travel period and accounting for about one-third of all arrivals from the Middle East, according to figures from the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

A total of 89,057 UAE tourists travelled to Thailand during the two months, including 46,540 in July and 42,517 in August. That equated to an average of about 1,436 Emirati visitors a day across the period.

An average of about 1,501 UAE tourists arrived each day in July and 1,372 a day in August, Emarat Al Youm reported.

July was the stronger of the two months, with Emirati visitors accounting for 33.24 per cent of the 140,026 tourists who arrived in Thailand from the Middle East during the month.

That meant roughly one in every three Middle East visitors to Thailand in July was from the UAE.

The number of Emirati tourists in July was also 22.13 per cent higher than in the same month of 2025, when Thailand received 38,107 visitors from the UAE.

The strong flow continued in August, when UAE travellers represented an even larger share of the Middle East market despite the overall number of Emirati visitors falling from the July peak.

Thailand received 123,887 tourists from the Middle East in August, of whom 42,517 were Emiratis. UAE visitors therefore accounted for 34.32 per cent of the regional total, again more than one in three.

The August figure was 47.72 per cent higher than the 28,781 Emirati tourists recorded in the same month last year.

Across July and August combined, Thailand received 263,913 tourists from the Middle East, with UAE nationals accounting for 89,057 of them.

That gave the UAE a 33.75 per cent share of all Middle East arrivals during the two-month period.

The UAE’s share also edged higher from July to August, rising from 33.24 per cent to 34.32 per cent even though the absolute number of Emirati visitors declined.

Tourism Authority of Thailand figures show that the UAE was also the largest Middle East source market for visitors to Thailand in both July and August.

The summer surge accounted for a large proportion of all Emirati travel to Thailand so far this year.

During the first eight months of 2026, Thailand received 126,378 UAE tourists, representing about 27.04 per cent of the 467,394 visitors who arrived from the Middle East over the same period.

The 89,057 Emiratis who travelled during July and August alone represented about 70.47 per cent of all UAE visitors recorded in the first eight months of the year.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand has previously described the UAE as one of its most important tourism markets in the Middle East and Gulf, citing both visitor volumes and comparatively high spending.

The authority has said the UAE market plays a strategic role in Thai tourism not only because of the number of travellers it generates, but also because of demand for luxury, personalised and higher-value travel experiences.

Official tourism spending data for 2025 show that an Emirati visitor stays in Thailand for an average of about 11.1 days and spends approximately Dh9,558 during a trip.

Applying those averages to the number of UAE visitors recorded in July and August 2026 would put their combined tourism spending at an estimated Dh851 million.

The same calculation indicates that UAE travellers generated approximately 988,500 visitor nights in Thailand over the two-month period.

For the first eight months of 2026, the 126,378 Emirati visitors would represent estimated tourism spending of about Dh1.21 billion, based on the Tourism Authority of Thailand's 2025 average spending figures.

Their combined stays would amount to roughly 1.4 million visitor nights at the average 11.1-day length of stay.