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The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) yesterday signed pledges of co-operation with 24 of China's leading outbound tour operators in an attempt to stop a massive drop in arrivals.

Key executives from major tour companies from Beijing. Guangzhou, Changsha, Kunming, Shanghai and Shenzhen were flown to Bangkok for the signing event which was staged to reverse a fall of 16.72 per cent for the first three months of 2004.

Only 182,453 Chinese visited Thailand from January to March this year, but what is really worrying TAT officials is that last year's figure was itself a drop of 9.26 per cent on 2002.

Pledges were also signed with 22 other operators from 16 countries including Germany, from where arrivals slumped 23.42 per cent, France, down 6.2 per cent, Singapore, down 6.07 per cent, Korea down 5.73 per cent, and Taiwan down 6.81 per cent.

Thailand's number one feeder market, Japan, was down a worrying 6.51 per cent. There was better news from the UK, up 3.14 per cent, India, up 9.45 per cent and Russia, from where there was an increase of 17.95 per cent. But the biggest surprise was an increase of 26.72 per cent from Malaysia.

The overall total from all markets shows arrivals were 2,995,117, an increase of 4.43 per cent over the first quarter of 2003 but an increase of only 2.7 per cent over the same period in 2002.

The figures suggest that the outbreak of avian flu may have had a deeper impact than was at first thought.