11 16 16 Changing Times Thailand's Incredible Tourism Industry

With something for everybody, Thailand's booming tourism industry shrugs off coups, political upsets, natural disasters, even occasional bombs. Depending on who you ask and how you count, it accounts for somewhere between 12% and 18% of the economy, and continues to grow, employing some 6.2 million people directly and indirectly, which is about 16% of the workforce. In 2015, after a 10% drop in arrivals amid the political shenanigans of 2014, the kingdom earned $44.6 billion from resurgent tourism. According to the United Nations' World Tourism Organization, that placed it in sixth place on the global tourism league table by gross revenue - ahead of Germany and Japan. The target set for 2016 was $69 billion in revenue from 33 million arrivals -- that is nearly ten times the number who arrived for 1987's Visit Thailand Year, widely considered a marketing triumph at the time.