The kingdom of Thailand lies in the heart of Southeast Asia, making it a natural gateway to Indochina, Myanmar and Southern China. Its shape and geography divide into four natural regions; the mountains and forests of the North; the vast rice fields of the Central Plains; the semi-arid farm lands of the Northeast plateau; and the tropical islands and long coastline of the peninsula South.
The country comprises 76 provinces that are further divided into districts, sub-districts and villages. Bangkok is the capital city and centre of political, commercial, industrial and cultural activities. It is also the seat of Thailand's revered Royal Family, with His Majesty the King recognized as Head of State, Head of the Armed Forces, Upholder of the Buddhist religion and Upholder of all religions.
The Thai tourism industry is projected to end the year with a total of 13.8 million international visitor arrivals in 2006. Revenue earnings from tourism are now projected at 486 billion baht.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has targeted 14.8 million international visitor arrivals in 2007 with estimated target revenues of 547.5 billion baht.
International visitor arrivals from East Asia rose by 23.54% to 5,694,169 in January-September 2007. Markets that have shown good growth include Korea +41.52%, China +36.93%, Hong Kong +33.85%, and Taiwan +26.36%. Other areas of growth were seen from European visitors. International visitor arrivals from Europe rose by 24.66% to 2,423,498 during January-September 2003. Russia was the outstanding market with a growth of 97.45% during this period. Other main markets like the UK were up +10.40%, Germany +21.04%, Sweden +46.06%, Norway +33.11%, and Finland +30.39%.
Many of these visitors are coming to Thailand to stay in luxury villas which are renowned throughout the world for their beautiful surroundings and amazing value. Luxury Phuket villas in particular stand out as being amongst the best in the world. Samui Villas and Krabi Villas are catching up however and are seeing a large increase year on year in occupancy as guests seek something slightly different and quieter than the hustle and bustle of Phuket.
Thailand constantly is winning awards for its tourism infrastructure, recently The Swedish travel publication, Travel News, recently presented the annual Grand Travel Award - the equivalent of the travel and tourism industry's 'Oscars' - for the fifteenth consecutive year.
Thailand ranked first in the "World's Best Tourist Country" category, making this the fifth consecutive year that Thailand has won the Swedish Grand Travel Award. The other top ten travel destinations deemed to be popular with Swedish travelers include South Africa, the United States, Italy, China, Greece, Denmark, Spain, France and Croatia. Other awards include Asia's very own award-winning luxury travel and lifestyle magazine, DestinAsian, awarding Bangkok with 'Best Leisure DestinAsian City' and The Oriental Bangkok won the DestinAsian 'Best Hotel, Bangkok' award.
From Bangkok, guests are spoiled for choice when it comes to luxury villas for rent. Stunning locations are within hours of the capitol making weekend breaks very popular these days, High flying professionals can fly in from Hong Kong and be relaxing beside their private pool a their Thailand villa in no time, and enjoying the Thai pace of life.
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