{"id":451457,"date":"2026-05-16T05:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T05:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/451457\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T05:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T05:41:12","slug":"southeast-asias-second-largest-economy-blames-iran-war-for-tourism-downturn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/451457\/","title":{"rendered":"Southeast Asia&#8217;s second largest economy blames Iran war for tourism downturn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/m2hpxwrfivnlnbeof26o5gki3a-177-3213-1336-1778812616.png\" data-original=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/m2hpxwrfivnlnbeof26o5gki3a-177-3213-1336-1778812616.png\" data-original-2x=\"https:\/\/vcdn1-english.vnecdn.net\/2026\/05\/15\/m2hpxwrfivnlnbeof26o5gki3a-177-3213-1336-1778812616.png?w=680&amp;h=408&amp;q=100&amp;dpr=2&amp;fit=crop&amp;s=wxUvEtYkwQ1vFyNMaJlzmQ\" class=\"vne_lazy_image\" alt=\"Southeast Asia's second largest economy blames Iran war for tourism downturn\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\nThe skyline is photographed during sunset in Bangkok, Thailand, July 3, 2023. Photo by Reuters\t<\/p>\n<p>Thailand said its tourism industry weakened sharply toward the end of the quarter due to air travel disruptions linked to the Iran war.\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Tourist arrivals fell 1.8% in February before dropping 8.7% in March.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">The Southeast Asia&#8217;s second largest economy received 9.31 million international visitors in the first quarter of 2026, indicating a slight 2.3% contraction compared to a year earlier.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Bank of Thailand Assistant Governor Chayawadee Chai-anant said tourism arrivals from Gulf countries dropped to nearly zero in March after attacks from Iran led to airport closures across the region.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Tourism from Malaysia also softened during the quarter, as rising fuel prices discouraged road travel into Thailand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">The decline in tourism added pressure on the economy, given the sector&#8217;s importance to employment and consumption.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Normal\">Economists also warned that disruptions related to air travel could continue to weigh on tourism activity in the coming months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The skyline is photographed during sunset in Bangkok, Thailand, July 3, 2023. Photo by Reuters Thailand said its&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60,17759],"class_list":["post-451457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-southeast-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}