kinyara

I don't either but you're making assertions without any information to support them, so I'll take that as a no. As an example the tourist length of stay statistics would look very strange if they included expats on retirement visas as tourists. My recent trip overseas was 3 years after my last one, so if your theory of including every expat arrival as a tourist was correct I would show up in the statistics as a tourist staying over 1,000 days.

If you read almost any thread about tourist numbers that's exactly the line that many posters take regarding Malaysian tourists, classifying them as day shoppers or even more bizarrly workers, which of course isn't supported by the facts, namely in common with other Asian countries the average length of stay is 4-5 days. 2022 wasn't a tourism anomaly regarding arrival method by Malaysian tourists. See " International Tourist Arrivals by Mode of Transport 2011-2020 " in the attached link, which shows consistently year by year arrivals by land were 60%+ of the total from Malaysia. http://statbbi.nso.go.th/staticreport/page/sector/en/17.aspx

Someone should buy the old codger a basic Casio with an alarm function given how often he falls asleep on official business.

I suspect the only people that mention hubs in this country are the shoddy little western owned clickbait online advertising websites masquerading as news outlets.

In 2022 the Pattaya municipality electorate had the chance to register their displeasure towards the family responsible for the appalling infrastructure and the billions " wasted " on unfinished projects that have been seen in the city over the last 2 decades. The voter turnout was 49.96%. Galling as it is, I have little sympathy for those who have an opportunity to at least try and make a change but can't be bothered to vote for it.

https://www.tatnews.org/2022/10/tat-says-amazing-thailand-a-million-thanks-to-the-malaysians/#:~:text=Between 1 January%2C 2022%2C and,across the Thai-Malaysian border. " Between 1st January 2022 and 7 October 2022, almost 1.1 million Malaysian tourists visited Thailand, accounting for 60% of this total was overland travel across the Thai-Malaysian border ". TAT thanking tourists they don't count. 😂

Can you support your theory with any hard facts, or is it just your usual hearsay ?

Utter rubbish, they even published a breakdown of the 39 million 2019 figures showing the split between those arriving by air and land. From memory for Malaysian tourists it was in the 60/40 range.

They most definately don't, TAT uses exactly the same numbers as the Ministry of Sports and Tourism which is all tourists recorded entering at both land and air entry points. Fairly obvious when you consider the number of Malaysian tourists who visit via land borders.

Where to start with that one, some people. 😂

Every story on tourism gets reported because it's one of those topics people love to comment on, monthly factory output just wouldn't stir the same emotions. If you weren't signed up here I'm sure you could live your life blissfully unaware of tourist numbers.

The same basis every country in the world uses whether your visits are 2 weeks apart or 3 trips spread over a year. You think any country back checks every person arriving to see whether it's their first visit in the year and reduce the figures accordingly ?

At the start of the year they stated a forecast range of between 24-30 million primarily due to the uncertainty of the level of Chinese recovery, so looking like they'll come in around the mid-point.

Incentivising longer stay tourism from one of their largest markets at this time when their primary market China is in such a shortfall is a common sense move. Asean Now members have been calling for easy longer stay tourist options for a long-time, while at the same time highlighting the unattractivess of the country to Western tourism due to all of Thailand's faults and global economic strains, high airfares etc. Srettha has clearly taken their advice onboard and offered an incentive to a grateful tourist nation.

Let the outrage begin. ????

The cabinet have just approved the increase of visa free stay for Russians from 30 days to 90 days starting Nov 1 to April 30, I can see that boosting numbers in the Jomtien/Pratumnak area. Should ease high season pressure on immigration from last year and their 30 day extenders.

Not sure attracting what by nature is a small group of people would make a great deal of difference to anyone other than an already rich group of business owners catering to them. I doubt the staff serving them are paid substantially more than those in less exclusive establishments.

No big deal, people come and go all the time for their own reasons. Their decisions have zero impact on me.

While I'm sure it will be busy, in pure number terms the continued absence of the Chinese is unlikely to make it the biggest high season ever, far from it. Just as an indication monthly numbers are running at 70% of the same month in 2019, I can't see that dramatically increasing in 2 or 3 months time.

What's their policing situation like ?

I'm sure Asean Now readers are chomping at the bit to take advantage of a price reduction to visit Thailand's national parks and historical attractions. Finally their time has arrived.

Possibly if you bought with a short-term investor outlook with borrowed money, but why would that matter if you bought your property in the last few years as your long-term retirement home. You've made your financial commitment, taken exchange rate uncertainty out of the equation for what would be your major expense if you hadn't bought, and you can get on with enjoying life in the comfort of your own home.

Seems a lot of people on here make the mistake of automatically assuming every news article concerning tourism is quoting the same original source, when exactly the opposite true. Everyone was criticising TAT on an article either yesterday or the day before, and the people quoted in the article had nothing to do with TAT. I don't know why anyone would expect consistency of opinion from multiple different sources. I think it's the case a lot of posters don't even read the content of original posts and just trot out their usual bias.

It's no mystery, there was the usual increase due to the Chinese holiday and the following week, i.e. now, it has returned to the pre-holiday level. The jury is out on future outlook due to economic factors and the favourable visa concessions granted, let's see the impact with the actual numbers for November and December as an indicator.

One of the hardest questions to answer with any degree of certainty now more than ever. So many different factors at play both on the domestic economic and political policy front and with regard to potential foreign investment and its global economic impacts. I enjoy the place and wouldn't want to live anywhere else, but taking an objective viewpoint I'd find the decision to buy a lot harder to make now than when I did 20 years ago, it was a no-brainer to me back then, now I don't think it offers the same all round value/living proposition for a number of reasons, social, political and on pure economic grounds.