Thailand sees rare but significant drop in tourist arrivals

[lkv]

A "rare" drop. 

 

www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-11-21/rare-drop-in-tourist-numbers-keeps-thai-economic-outlook-cloudy

 

Another "rare" drop happened in October last year, just about when VOA became free during the "promotional" period, which now will last 1 year (until Oct 2019).

 

At that time, as reported by Bloomberg, Chinese visitors slid by 20%.

 

More "rare" drops expected to follow.

[aspenbkk]

What about Farangs i Was recently in pattaya for 1 month bkk for 2 weeks and both empty and the beach area deserted, thais asking everyone to sit down as no one there   ?  white tourists no mention about them as usual ? only chinese and indian who spend nothing in restaurants bars laundries taxis to keep them open and people in work. this place is going down the sinkhole more and more No Wonder Vietnam a lot Better and Cheaper too and Less Crime and Rapes.

[sambum]

1 hour ago, cheapcanuck said:

Wait till April numbers come in. There will be another significant drop. Based on what you see on the streets and in bars.

Based on whose figures? Bloomberg's or TAT's ?

 

Based on TAT's record in the past, the INCREASE will be due to more families that do not frequent the bars - just hole up in their 5* Hotels, and do not walk the streets, or frequent "touristy" places. If they take a break from their hotel, they go to the likes of rural Esan to discover the "Real" Thailand - the last time I was there, the place was crawling with tourists taking photographs of the rice fields and village temples!  And it was nearly impossible to find a hotel room - sorry, I should have said "nearly impossible to find a hotel"!  

 

[moe666]

In Chiang Mai the hotel my wife works at has one room occupied a friends guest house had 2 rooms last night and one today. Not many tourist out and about at present but there are a few. They like to stay in the old city.

[orang37]

Quote

 a country where tourism accounts for a fifth of the economy

 

Perhaps Bloomberg is on to the fact that there is such off-the-books baht juggling in the tourism sector that a much higher estimate than on-the-books data is necessary ?

 

~o:37;

[moe666]

40 minutes ago, alzack said:

"Can only agree. When I first came here in 2004, I was getting 73 baht to the British pound - now it's down to 41." 

 

Well most tourist rates today at Heathrow 38 Baht £1

 We returned to live in UK 2016 and we are now so much better off. as the other Post said, losing about 45% of exchange depreciation on Pensions was too much to take, we were going bust on a drip feed of devaluation of the pound. As you say the baht crazy value

The lb is down aganist all currencies, the problem is brixet the baht is the least of your problems.

[StayinThailand2much]

13 minutes ago, aspenbkk said:

No Wonder Vietnam a lot Better and Cheaper too and Less Crime and Rapes.

Never mind Vietnam; a good cup of coffee in Bangkok costs more than a cup in Sydney or Auckland! And we haven't even talked about wine yet... Bangkok, or Thailand as a whole, is not the inexpensive place it is often portrayed as, except, of course, if one limits oneself to three times rice with water a day.

[Dek Somboon]

Didn’t we read just yesterday how resilient the industry is, especially with all the Chinese?...????????????‍♂️

[helloagain]

7 hours ago, PatOngo said:

Maybe tourists are opting for the edge of the universe and giving the centre a miss!

Too expensive cos of exchange rate years ago 74.9 baht to the £1. Too many chinese deaths. Too many deaths anyway. Too many scams, jet ski, taxi, dual prices....... Zoo...... Botanical gardens...... Rawai fish market etc etc. Too many thais beating up forieners. And too much ill feeling against forieners who soend their hard earned money here. 

[helloagain]

Too expensive cos of exchange rate years ago 74.9 baht to the £1. Too many chinese deaths. Too many deaths anyway. Too many scams, jet ski, taxi, dual prices....... Zoo...... Botanical gardens...... Rawai fish market etc etc. Too many thais beating up forieners. And too much ill feeling against forieners who soend their hard earned money here. 

[StevieAus]

6 hours ago, smedly said:

they have hundreds of thousands of tourists that came here and decided to stay, not for 14 days a year but 365 days a year for years and they are being treated like (deleted)

Yes but tourists are not supposed to stay for 365 days a year for years, they are supposed to leave after the time stamped in the passport as is the case in most countries.

If you want to stay for years you have to apply for the correct visa or extension.

Very easy, have been doing it for years with no problem as have my expat friends.

[balo]

Try to check the arriving numbers to Vietnam and Cambodia , I think they are on their way up. 

[Wilsonandson]

Too expensive cos of exchange rate years ago 74.9 baht to the £1. Too many chinese deaths. Too many deaths anyway. Too many scams, jet ski, taxi, dual prices....... Zoo...... Botanical gardens...... Rawai fish market etc etc. Too many thais beating up forieners. And too much ill feeling against forieners who soend their hard earned money here. 

All too much it seems. I'd of thought that the smoke, haze, air quality has something to do with the drop. It's been international news this year and now the weather is also putting people off coming. It's certainly one of the hottest hot seasons I've experienced now. Maybe a few other factors like maybe it's cheaper in Spain now and that's starting to draw tourists again. There's lots of factors.

Sent from my SM-A700FD using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[Destiny1990]

Its a win win situation they happy we are gone and Luckily nowadays for us there are plenty of other similar interesting destinations  even more affordable and more flexible for visa extensions.

 

[metisdead]

Off topic posts and replies have been removed. 

[batata]

this is just the beginning.... more surprises to come and TAT will correct all numbers. Thailand has been milking the cow, guess the cow dry off and milk became a scarce amenity, they saw it coming and they didn't react, some of their neighbors are having the last laugh

[high plane drifter]

2,000 bahts for visa,,, we have to pay to come and spend our money in Thailand, and make the country economy higher. 

[daveAustin]

The negative influence from the army, corruption, rip-offs, roads and heat & haze are window dressing when held up against the elephant in the room - high baht, value for money.

[batata]

2 minutes ago, high plane drifter said:

2,000 bahts for visa,,, we have to pay to come and spend our money in Thailand, and make the country economy higher. 

this is a country where one has to paid to be able to spend his/hers money in... usually is the contrary countries make offers/incentives to have people coming to their country and spend money, the world is up side down in Thailand

[soistalker]

Lies.

[Destiny1990]

4 minutes ago, high plane drifter said:

2,000 bahts for visa,,, we have to pay to come and spend our money in Thailand, and make the country economy higher. 

This sounds reasonable to me but besides that u need to be lucky and grateful to be even allowed back in..

[smedly]

40 minutes ago, StevieAus said:

Yes but tourists are not supposed to stay for 365 days a year for years

I thought my post was self explanatory to most - they are not tourists they decided to come live here - is that complicated for you

[DrTuner]

That must be thanks to me and my relentless efforts in TVF informing the would be arrivals to stay away. According to a poster in another thread. I'll accept the honor with my charateristic humility.

[DrTuner]

8 minutes ago, soistalker said:

One of my problems with Thailand is that they are all full of sh!t. Literally everything they say is a lie. 

Not everything, when they say they are hungry they mean it. Which is just about every 15mins.

[chama]

One has to wonder what kind of coverage the Thai election is getting in China and if the potential tourist there are concerned about the unrest that Thailand appears to be teetering on. Of course the realization that their lives are not very important here but there money is may also have impacted their tourist plans.

[lkv]

I miss operation X ray foreigner, we did not have that for a while now (it's been like a few weeks already).

 

Also, more pocket searching and urine testing in the streets for everybody, we must "get the bad guys out".

[DavisH]

8 hours ago, Chang_paarp said:

I suspect you are right there, a decimal point seems to have moved somewhere between TAT and Bloomberg. I would hazard a guess that he decline in numbers was in the real of 350K. If it was 3.5 mil the folk at TAT would be heading for the windows. 

 

Even at 350K that is a sizeable dent in the income. The other stat that comes from the OP was that tourism represents 20% of the economy (or GDP), this is one of the higher numbers I have seen for tourism.

 

It's probably 7% as the total number of visitors on wikipedia shows the following. Can you imagine the airport in 2030? LOL

[Percy P]

59 minutes ago, high plane drifter said:

2,000 bahts for visa,,, we have to pay to come and spend our money in Thailand, and make the country economy higher. 

I don't go to Aseancountries that need a visa taking up a full page in my PPort..I only have 25 pages which should last me 10 years .No chance

[Peterbilt]

9 minutes ago, chama said:

One has to wonder what kind of coverage the Thai election is getting in China and if the potential tourist there are concerned about the unrest that Thailand appears to be teetering on. Of course the realization that their lives are not very important here but there money is may also have impacted their tourist plans.

Most likely there isn't any coverage about the Thai elections in China. There are no elections in China, so there's no reason for the state media to disturb the public with news about elections somewhere in the neighborhood.

What would be of interest for the Chinese public would be news about unrest breaking out in Thailand. If this would happen, the Chinese government would issue a travel warning pretty quick, sending tourist numbers and the Thai GDP downwards.
Reason enough for the guys in camouflage to get those tanks out of the barracks again.
 

[DrTuner]

16 minutes ago, chama said:

One has to wonder what kind of coverage the Thai election is getting in China and if the potential tourist there are concerned about the unrest that Thailand appears to be teetering on. Of course the realization that their lives are not very important here but there money is may also have impacted their tourist plans.

I doubt the bus loads of mainland Chinese know about Chinese politics, much less care about others. They come to buy stuff to flog off in China for profit.