Are retirees moving to the new DTV visa - anybody done it?

[farangx]

5 hours ago, chama said:

The Chinese are desperately anxious to end the pollution in Thailand. So the second objective should work wonders. And communicating the improvements to the Chinese as a way to bring them back will only help if they have something relevant to tell the Chinese tourist. 

 

Of course there is an entire world out there that the Thais could try to market to but that hasn't seemed to occur to them.

How many western tourists get to enjoy paying 2,000b for visas like the Chinese tourists do.  There is still a month left for the Chinese tourists to enjoy this free visa.  Last year more than 25 million Chinese tourists visited Thailand.  That is more than 1.5 billion USD on visa fees alone, the entire world out there will just have to wait.

[chado]

20 hours ago, DoctorG said:

They really are in "panic mode" about the falling Chinese numbers.

Is it falling? Why? By how much?

[farangx]

3 minutes ago, chado said:

Is it falling? Why? By how much?

 

The numbers are really bad.  They did not show up during the Golden Week.  Now even with the visa fee waived, there are only a handful of them. As for why you have to check the previous pages.

[Fex Bluse]

[ExpatOilWorker]

3 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

That chart is either retarded or deliberated misleading made.

 

A Gazzilion Chinese tourist spend twice as mush as Americans who rarely travel beyond their own borders. Gheee, really?

 

"Rest of the world" must include Africa and India, so let me twist a new (and better) title around for this garbage:

 

"Poor Chinese tourists spend less than 40% than African and Indian tourist"

 

[newnative]

8 hours ago, farangx said:

how many are expats are there in this category, I guess 40,000?  If that is so it is a small number and negligible compared to the population here.  How much will they spend?

     Actually, your 40,000 figure would just cover northern America, according to Wikipedia.  46,000 for northern America, over 200,000 for Europe, and 13,000 for Australia and Oceania.  And, that's not counting all the Asian countries.

     To answer your second question as to 'how much will they spend?', I think the answer is plenty.  I'm just one expat but in the last 8 years I've bought:  18 condos, 17 refrigerators, 27 TVs, 15 aircons, 17 sofas, 20 beds and mattresses, 17 clothes washers, and a great deal of assorted other furniture and housewares to furnish the 18 condos. And 4 cars.  With almost all the condos, I employed local electricians, tilers, plumbers, painters, granite workers, wallpaper installers, curtain makers, contractors, furniture fabricators and installers, carpenters, artists, and many others.

      Of course, my buying has been much more than the norm but almost every expat I know owns at least one car, one property, some more than one, and most have done work on them with new kitchens and baths, furniture, etc.  When we expats are not touring other countries, most of our income is spent in Thailand, to the benefit of Thailand, with little or no financial drain on Thailand, with the exception of the salary of the Immigration agent who marks us as 'present' every 90 days.

     Tourist spending is, obviously, very important to the economy but so is the spending of expats, which in many cases is a different type of spending (like buying a car rather than a souvenir), but just as important.  Pity Thailand does little to recognize the contribution that expats make.

    

[farangx]

2 hours ago, newnative said:

     Actually, your 40,000 figure would just cover northern America, according to Wikipedia.  46,000 for northern America, over 200,000 for Europe, and 13,000 for Australia and Oceania.  And, that's not counting all the Asian countries.

     To answer your second question as to 'how much will they spend?', I think the answer is plenty.  I'm just one expat but in the last 8 years I've bought:  18 condos, 17 refrigerators, 27 TVs, 15 aircons, 17 sofas, 20 beds and mattresses, 17 clothes washers, and a great deal of assorted other furniture and housewares to furnish the 18 condos. And 4 cars.  With almost all the condos, I employed local electricians, tilers, plumbers, painters, granite workers, wallpaper installers, curtain makers, contractors, furniture fabricators and installers, carpenters, artists, and many others.

 

I have no idea that there are like 300,000 retirees here on the 800K scheme retirement extensions, I would guess that should be easily another 200,000 here who are on 65K income statement.  Making a total of at least 500,000 fully funded retirees in Thailand.  I say we definitely have a market for flipping condos here.

 

[Bill Miller]

12 hours ago, farangx said:

how many are expats are there in this category, I guess 40,000?  If that is so it is a small number and negligible compared to the population here.  How much will they spend?

Why are you guessing?
"Foreign residents in Thailand, according to the 2010 Census. It was found that there were 2,581,141 of foreign origins, composing around 3.87 percent of Thailand's population."
I submit that nearly four percent is a significant factor in the national economy.
I read numerous complaints that the Chinese tourists do not spend much outside of their tour groups. I do not know how you could get facts on that, but I do notice in many venues the gaggles of tourists trooping behind their flag waving guides, snapping photos of each other and selfies as they march by the businesses where non-Chinese folks are sitting and actually buying stuff.
I think it would take somebody smarter than me to figure out where the larger amount of money flows from into the general Thai economy.

[Bill Miller]

I would agree that the chart presented by Luxe is possibly very misleading.
China is one of the most populous nations on earth, so of course they are going to spend more than other nationalities.
The question is how much do they spend per capita? Also, where do they spend the money? Gross expenditures to China based tour operators would not give a useful number to use in estimating the impact of individual tourists on the world travel economy.
As in one of my favourite limericks, "who is doing what, and with which, and to whom?" 
I hope the chart is merely an excerpt from a much more detailed article.

[ChipButty]

11 hours ago, chado said:

Is it falling? Why? By how much?

It's definitely happening slowly but surely we have not even had any inquiries for a few months from Chinese almost all of this year we had Chinese guest, Yesterday got our first booking for next Feb from a Chinese family.

Lets see what happens upto now this season mostly Farang bookings

[farangx]

13 hours ago, farangx said:

how many are expats are there in this category, I guess 40,000?  If that is so it is a small number and negligible compared to the population here.  How much will they spend?

54 minutes ago, Bill Miller said:

Why are you guessing?
"Foreign residents in Thailand, according to the 2010 Census. It was found that there were 2,581,141 of foreign origins, composing around 3.87 percent of Thailand's population."
 

Is there any reason for you to assumed that these 2.5m foreign residents here are all retirees on the 800K retirement scheme?  Then I would guess again this census you quoted is wrong because it did not include those on 65K income retirement scheme, those on marriage, work etc ....

 

[Bill Miller]

6 minutes ago, farangx said:

Is there any reason for you to assumed that these 2.5m foreign residents here are all retirees on the 800K retirement scheme?  Then I would guess again this census you quoted is wrong because it did not include those on 65K income retirement scheme, those on marriage, work etc ....

 

You said absolutely nothing in the post I quoted about retirees, 800K baht, or any of the other BS you are yammering about now.
Some people simply are not amenable to logic or reading comprehension, I suppose.
In the post I quoted you said:
"how many are expats are there in this category, I guess 40,000? "
I gave you official numbers of expats per the 2010 census.
You guessed hugely wrong on 40,000 in any category you want to now claim you were talking about. There were more than that number of Americans alone, and 85,000 plus UK expats.
Can you admit you were just plain wrong?

Edited December 18, 2018 by Bill Miller

[Bill Miller]

Warning: complaint probably not strictly on topic. ????
I am irritated by folks who cannot understand what they read, and will twist themselves into Gordian knots trying to justify their errors after the fact.
Very much like some pols. ????

[farangx]

38 minutes ago, Bill Miller said:

You said absolutely nothing in the post I quoted about retirees, 800K baht, or any of the other BS you are yammering about now.
Some people simply are not amenable to logic or reading comprehension, I suppose.
In the post I quoted you said:
"how many are expats are there in this category, I guess 40,000? "
I gave you official numbers of expats per the 2010 census.
You guessed hugely wrong on 40,000 in any category you want to now claim you were talking about. There were more than that number of Americans alone, and 85,000 plus UK expats.
Can you admit you were just plain wrong?

My interest is retirees numbers here on the 800K scheme, which I guessed maybe 40,000 of them.  I am only interested in the numbers, is that too hard for you to even comprehend this.  Then you posted to say there are 2.5 millions are on this scheme in the 2010 census.  If that is so then I guessed it wrong badly.  I did say mine was a guess, but why are you so upset with what I guess.  Am I even not allowed to guess?

 

I am also trying to guess here that you quoted the 2010 census after I made my guess of 40,000, did I guess right here the second time?

 

Edited December 18, 2018 by farangx

[pmh2009]

It has nothing to with Thailand!!! The Chinese have migrated to Vietnam and Cambodia... where everything is still ush and green. And the most important fact --- The Chinese government has enacted a new law for Nainland Chinese from buying real estate; specifically "CONDOS" abroad. Which means the 50% of Chinese buying Thailand have disappeared which is causing mayhem in the condo market in Bangkok!!!

[Bill Miller]

5 minutes ago, farangx said:

My interest is retirees numbers here on the 800K scheme, which I guessed maybe 40,000 of them.  I am only interested in the numbers, is that too hard for you to even comprehend this.  Then you posted to say there are 2.5 millions are on this scheme in the 2010 census.  If that is so then I guessed it wrong badly.  I did say mine was a guess, but why are you so upset with what I guess.  Am I even not allowed to guess?

 

I cannot be bothered to respond further to someone unable to follow the conversation, which was that in the post I quoted you said NOTHING about all these other matters.

 

[farangx]

17 minutes ago, Bill Miller said:

I cannot be bothered to respond further to someone unable to follow the conversation, which was that in the post I quoted you said NOTHING about all these other matters.

 

And I will say to you again the second time, that my interest is the numbers of those on the 800K retirement scheme.  If you cannot follow then don't follow, but don't change my subject to suit you!

 

I said nothing because I have NO INTEREST in following these "other matters".

 

Edited December 18, 2018 by farangx

[Odysseus123]

14 minutes ago, farangx said:

And I will say to you again the second time, that my interest is the numbers of those on the 800K retirement scheme.  If you cannot follow then don't follow, but don't change my subject to suit you!

 

I said nothing because I have NO INTEREST in following these "other matters".

 

Numbers,eh?

 

Provided by whom,pray tell?