allyoops

Best to book flights direct with the airline, booking through agencies leaves you open to this sort of stuff.

There are many factors to people staying away and most have already been mentioned. Thailand used to be a cheap holiday but that was no longer the case even before the virus, so people are looking elsewhere or staying home. It's an accumulation of things but TAT really only ever makes things worse. Petty charges, dual pricing, changing the rules, etc etc. TAT is Thailands worst enemy as far as tourism goes. For years now they have rubbished western visitors, letting them know they can come and spend their money but they are not welcome. With financial hard times ahead and high air fares the best thing Thailand can do is rid itself of TAT and start again with people who understand foreigners and are not racist.

Apparently some of the Indian tourists who frequent the soapy's are on a three day reward package from their employer. Good performance reward, air fares, three nights hotel and one paid for soapy. This according to a very good youtube presenter. This was from Pattaya but I dont see why Phuket wouldn't be getting a share. These are the high class tourists the government are on about, smacks of desperation to me. I think they might have realised that the numbers of white westerners will not be as high as they once thought, too many bills at home and air fares too high. I doubt if there will be many two weekers at christmas time.

I am sure people are just lining up to come to Thailand to get ripped off, after all their own countries are ripping them off right now, so why not Thailand. On the downside, they may not have any money left to go to Thailand to be ripped off.