Chinese tourists arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, on Tuesday evening (October 20) for the first time in more than seven months as the country begins to reopen.

Tourism chiefs welcomed the holidaymakers from mainland China before their luggage were disinfected and loaded onto a bus at the Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK).

Thailand has recorded just a handful of local transmissions in more than four months and ministers are desperate to boost the tourism-dependent economy after banning international arrivals on March 22 this year.

They said that the Chinese tourists who arrived were deemed ''very low risk'' after coming from a region of the country that is free of the coronavirus.

Thailand imposed strict lockdown restrictions at the start of the pandemic and has avoided the virus taking hold.

However, the country's tourism reliant economy accounting for up to 20 per cent of GDP has been shattered - shrinking at its deepest pace since the 1998 Asian financial crisis.