Tourism vs Arts and Entertainment: Net Margin in Thailand 2026
In short
Tourism and hospitality, coded as accommodation and food service in DBD data, posts an aggregate net margin of 5.66 percent as of 7 Jul 2026. Arts, entertainment and recreation, its neighbor in Thailand's leisure economy, runs a net loss of negative 1.09 percent. That is a 6.75 point gap between two sectors built on the same tourists and free time. Tourism and hospitality has 83,598 registered companies, 4.52 times the 18,486 in arts and entertainment. Arts and entertainment is one of only two of Thailand's 21 industry sections in the red, and the only one of meaningful size.
How does tourism and hospitality compare to arts and entertainment?
Thailand's two leisure sectors sit on opposite sides of the profit line. Tourism and hospitality, the DBD category covering hotels, resorts and restaurants, posted an aggregate net margin of 5.66 percent as of 7 Jul 2026 (DBD, 2026). Arts, entertainment and recreation, the neighboring sector that covers sports clubs, amusement venues and recreational activities, posted a net margin of negative 1.09 percent over the same period. The two sectors are close in nature but far apart in outcome, a gap of 6.75 percentage points. Tourism and hospitality also outnumbers its neighbor by scale, 83,598 registered companies against 18,486, a ratio of 4.52 to 1. Revenue tells the same story, 940.88 billion baht for tourism and hospitality against 136.76 billion baht for arts and entertainment, 6.88 times as much. Arts and entertainment is not simply thinner margined. It is one of only two of Thailand's 21 industry sections reporting an aggregate net loss, and the only one of any real size doing so.
Profitability metrics: tourism and hospitality vs arts and entertainment
- Tourism and hospitality net margin6
- Arts and entertainment net margin-1
- Tourism and hospitality ROE8
- Arts and entertainment ROE-2
- Tourism and hospitality ROA2
- Arts and entertainment ROA-0
Figures in percent.
Every profitability measure sits negative for arts and entertainment and positive for tourism and hospitality. The gap does not close on any single measure.
Tourism and hospitality against arts and entertainment, side by side
| Metric | Tourism and hospitality, section I | Arts and entertainment, section R |
|---|---|---|
| Registered companies | 83,598 | 18,486 |
| Active companies, 5-digit rollup | 48,564 | 9,072 |
| Survival rate | 58.09% | 49.07% |
| Total revenue | 940.88 billion baht | 136.76 billion baht |
| Total net profit or loss | 53.25 billion baht | -1.49 billion baht |
| Net margin | 5.66% | -1.09% |
| Return on equity | 7.91% | -2.44% |
| Return on assets | 2.23% | -0.48% |
| Micro company share | 72.49% | 81.42% |
| Top company by revenue | Minor International Public Company Limited | Lotteryplus Co., Ltd. |
| Top company share of section revenue | 2.01% | 11.84% |
DBD section I compared with DBD section R, as of 7 Jul 2026.
Why the gap matters
Both sectors feed off the same underlying demand, people with free time and money to spend on leisure. Tourism and hospitality captures a scale advantage that spreads fixed costs across a large national footprint of hotels and restaurants, and it rides on foreign arrivals as a demand floor. That floor sank in 2025, when international tourist arrivals to Thailand fell 7.23 percent to 32.97 million (Bank of Thailand, 2025). Tourism receipts from those foreign visitors fell 4.71 percent to about 1.54 trillion baht over the same year, so even the profitable side of Thailand's leisure economy felt a soft year for travel. Arts, entertainment and recreation carries a different risk profile entirely. It is a smaller, more concentrated sector where one company, Lotteryplus, holds nearly 12 percent of section revenue, well above the 2 percent that tourism and hospitality's largest company holds. It also lacks the built-in demand floor that comes from housing and feeding millions of travelers every year. A lender or investor sizing up Thailand's leisure economy should treat the two sectors as separate bets, not one tourism story. One is compounding gains at national scale. The other is absorbing losses while staying mostly composed of micro companies with little room to weather a bad quarter.
Definitions
- Net margin
- Aggregate net profit as a share of aggregate revenue for every company in a section, not the average of each company's own margin.
- Return on equity
- Aggregate net profit divided by aggregate shareholder equity for every company in a section, a measure of how hard a sector puts owner capital to work.
- Return on assets
- Aggregate net profit divided by aggregate total assets for every company in a section, a measure of how efficiently a sector turns its asset base into profit.
- TSIC section
- A lettered category in the Thailand Standard Industrial Classification. Section I covers accommodation and food service, used here as the closest proxy for tourism and hospitality. Section R covers arts, entertainment and recreation.
- Survival rate
- The share of registered companies within a section that are currently active rather than inactive or struck off, based on the 5-digit TSIC rollup.
- Size band
- DBD's classification of a company as micro, small, medium or large, generally based on revenue and paid-up capital thresholds.
Assumptions
- Tourism and hospitality is approximated by TSIC section I, accommodation and food service, since the DBD registry has no separate tourism category.
- Margins, ROE and ROA are aggregate sector-wide sums, not the average of each company's own ratio, and can be skewed by very large companies such as Minor International in tourism and hospitality.
- Entity counts differ by about 10 companies between the section-level table and the 5-digit TSIC rollup used for survival rate, a minor reconciliation gap between the two source tables.
- Only companies that filed a financial statement contribute to revenue, profit, margin and ratio figures, so unregistered or informal tourism and entertainment businesses are excluded entirely.
Methodology
Net margin, return on equity and return on assets are calculated as aggregate sector totals, total net profit divided by total revenue, total net profit divided by total equity, and total net profit divided by total assets, not the average of each company's own ratio. Figures are drawn from the DBD registry's section-level aggregates as of 7 Jul 2026. Tourism and hospitality is approximated using TSIC section I, accommodation and food service, the closest formal DBD classification to tourism, since no separate tourism section exists in the registry. Only companies that filed a financial statement contribute to revenue, profit and margin figures. Survival rate and company size shares are computed by summing across every 5-digit TSIC code within each section, so the company count in that rollup differs from the section-level count by about 10 companies, a minor reconciliation gap between the two source tables.
How we verified this
- Margin gap: 5.65922783 percent minus negative 1.08719005 percent equals 6.74641788, rounded to 6.75 percentage points, from market_section_insight net_margin for sections I and R.
- Company ratio: 83,598 divided by 18,486 equals 4.5227, rounded to 4.52, confirming tourism and hospitality has about 4.52 times as many registered companies as arts and entertainment.
- Revenue ratio: 940,875,172,957.32 divided by 136,761,688,848.90 equals 6.8797, rounded to 6.88, confirming tourism and hospitality generates about 6.88 times the revenue.
- Top company revenue share: 18,875,301,683 divided by 940,875,172,957.32 equals 2.01 percent for tourism and hospitality. 16,190,074,494.06 divided by 136,761,688,848.90 equals 11.84 percent for arts and entertainment.
- Survival rate: summed across market_tsic_insight rows within each section, 48,564 active divided by 83,608 total equals 58.09 percent for tourism and hospitality. 9,072 active divided by 18,486 total equals 49.07 percent for arts and entertainment.
- Sorting every row in market_section_insight ascending by net_margin shows only two of the 21 lettered sections, R and U, with a negative value, and U counts just 4 companies.
- Average result per company: 53,246,269,655.88 divided by 83,598 equals a 636,932 baht profit per tourism and hospitality company. Negative 1,486,859,475.66 divided by 18,486 equals an 80,432 baht loss per arts and entertainment company.
References
- Department of Business Development. (2026). Registered juristic persons and financial statement aggregates. Ministry of Commerce, Thailand. https://www.dbd.go.th/
- Bank of Thailand. (2025). Tourism receipts and international tourist arrivals statistics. https://app.bot.or.th/BTWS_STAT/statistics/ReportPage.aspx?reportID=875&language=eng
Frequently asked questions
Is Thailand's tourism sector more profitable than arts and entertainment?
Yes. Tourism and hospitality posted a 5.66 percent aggregate net margin as of 7 Jul 2026, while arts, entertainment and recreation posted negative 1.09 percent, an aggregate net loss.
Why does arts and entertainment run a net loss in Thailand?
The sector is smaller, more concentrated around one large company, and does not carry the steady demand floor that tourism and hospitality gets from foreign arrivals and daily food service, so its aggregate profit turns negative once every registered company's results are summed.
How many industry sections in Thailand report an aggregate net loss?
Only two of the 21 lettered industry sections, arts and entertainment and the tiny extraterritorial organizations section, which counts just 4 companies. Arts and entertainment is the only loss-making section of meaningful size.
What company is included as tourism and hospitality in this data?
The DBD classification used is TSIC section I, accommodation and food service, which covers hotels, resorts and restaurants and is the closest formal category to tourism in the registry.
Cite this page
Chatpong L. (2026). Tourism vs Arts and Entertainment: Net Margin in Thailand 2026. Max Data Insights. https://maxdatathailand.com/insights/tourism-vs-arts-and-entertainment-companies-in-thailand-2026
Data & corrections
Download the data (CSV)Spot something off, or want to ask about the data? Email insights@maxsolutions.co.th. We publish corrections.
Written by
Chatpong L.Founder, Max Data, Max Solutions Co., Ltd.
Chatpong L. leads Max Data, a company-intelligence platform built on Thailand's official business registry. He writes about the structure of the Thai economy using primary registry data. His work covers company formation, industry concentration, and regional business activity.
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This page reports company-level and aggregate statistics only. It names no individuals and makes no claims about any person. Figures are provided for information and may be revised as source data updates.