Paper Title
Economic Factors Influencing Chinese Tourists to Thailand

Abstract
Thailand’s tourism sector has played an increasingly important role in the economy in recent years, boosting many related businesses and helping compensate for weak growth in other sectors. The total revenue of the tourism sector in 2016 is over 2.51 trillion baht. The tourism sector has added value to the Thai economy or accounted for 17.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The top five tourists to Thailand were from China, Malaysia, Korea, Japan and Laos. Chinese tourists traveling to Thailand for more than 11.2 million people per year, which is regarded as the highest proportion of tourists compared to other countries. This study focuses on China’s internal factors that affect Chinese tourists travel to Thailand, including expenditure per capita of Chinese tourists in Thailand, China's GDP, and value of Yuan compared to Baht. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) is applied and time series is used. Data is collected from the Tourism Authority of Thailand during 2006-2016. The results show that all the three factors are positively related to Chinese tourists traveling to Thailand. Keywords- Tourism Economics, Chinese tourists, Thailand