Strong baht, lack of westerners, will it really hurt thailand

[wilcopops]

38 minutes ago, aqua4 said:

Japanese

Western

Western

Disaster

 

 

38 minutes ago, aqua4 said:

Japanese

Western

Western

Disaster

 

you really need to get a reality check......motor industry in Thailand is majority Thai owned and run, you are confusing brands with who is doing the stuff.

Electronics are Japanese and Korean brands and the country is cash rich.

There are "foreign" companies in every successful economy and that's how it works these days.

Edited September 14, 2019 by wilcopops

[alan grice]

Honda and Toyota are Thai.?


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[geisha]

I have  definitely a good budget to spend my winter through in Thailand , and neighbouring countries I visit . But with the euro at 33B for sure I will spend less. I already last year saw most of my neighbours drinking with friends on their balconies . Maybe this year they’ll be eating too. 

 

[wilcopops]

3 hours ago, alan grice said:

Honda and Toyota are Thai.?


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

You don't understand a multi-national - Honda and Toyota are 51 % Thai owned - the vehicles and parts are largely manufactured in Thailand by Thai companies, this is normal throughout the world and why the British motor industry up till Brexit is bigger than it has ever been - just a little smaller than the Thai mortor industry.

 

Thailand and imports hardly any cars which is why the variety is so small as there is a 300% range of taxes and duties on imports to protect the Thai industry.

Edited September 14, 2019 by wilcopops

[Gulfsailor]

15 minutes ago, wilcopops said:

You don't understand a multi-national - Honda and Toyota are 51 % Thai owned - the vehicles and parts are largely manufactured in Thailand by Thai companies, this is normal throughout the world and why the British motor industry up till Brexit is bigger than it has ever been - just a little smaller than the Thai mortor industry.

 

Thailand and imports hardly any cars which is why the variety is so small as there is a 300% range of taxes and duties on imports to protect the Thai industry.

Toyota Thailand is 100% owned by Toyota (Japan). Honda Thailand is 90+% owned by Honda (Japan). 

Thai Rung is the only majority Thai owned car manufacturing company in Thailand. 

[wilcopops]

18 minutes ago, Gulfsailor said:

Toyota Thailand is 100% owned by Toyota (Japan). Honda Thailand is 90+% owned by Honda (Japan). 

Thai Rung is the only majority Thai owned car manufacturing company in Thailand. 

Not exactly - the com[any to which you refer is Honda Thailand - it is a Thai company. BOI companies may have 100% foreign ownership but this is no different to industries in other countries - the result is that the Thai automotive industry is  in the world top ten most of the time.

 the basic rule is 49%, they are allowed to have a majority on the boards - they are also not just one conpany; most of the parts for the Thai motor industry are also made in Thailand. the same applies to Ford and Auto alliance, Mazda, Isuzu , Chevrolet (GM) MG Susuki, etc et BMW and Mercedes assemble some models here to avoid some duties.

thai Rung builds vehicles made from Japanese brands manufactured in Thailand, at present it appears to be Isuzu. Nissan and Mitsubishi share production lines.

the automotive industry is Thailand's second largest export industry after computer parts and components. Thai Summit are one of the largest companies as they manufacture everything from chassis to paints for most makes and own the factories.

[Gulfsailor]

37 minutes ago, wilcopops said:

Not exactly - the com[any to which you refer is Honda Thailand - it is a Thai company. BOI companies may have 100% foreign ownership but this is no different to industries in other countries - the result is that the Thai automotive industry is  in the world top ten most of the time.

 the basic rule is 49%, they are allowed to have a majority on the boards - they are also not just one conpany; most of the parts for the Thai motor industry are also made in Thailand. the same applies to Ford and Auto alliance, Mazda, Isuzu , Chevrolet (GM) MG Susuki, etc et BMW and Mercedes assemble some models here to avoid some duties.

thai Rung builds vehicles made from Japanese brands manufactured in Thailand, at present it appears to be Isuzu. Nissan and Mitsubishi share production lines.

the automotive industry is Thailand's second largest export industry after computer parts and components. Thai Summit are one of the largest companies as they manufacture everything from chassis to paints for most makes and own the factories.

Thai Summit is a 100% Thai company and they are a major Tier 1 supplier in the automotive industry in a Thailand. However there are plenty other Tier 1 companies, most of them foreign majority owned. And all actual car brand companies in Thailand (bar Thai Rung) are majority foreign owned and in most cases 100% foreign owned. Toyota for example may buy plastic and steel molded parts from Thai Summit, the chassis, engine and body are manufactured and assembled in one of the 3 factories in Thailand they own themselves. 

 

 

[Dumbastheycome]

27 minutes ago, Gulfsailor said:

Thai Summit is a 100% Thai company and they are a major Tier 1 supplier in the automotive industry in a Thailand. However there are plenty other Tier 1 companies, most of them foreign majority owned. And all actual car brand companies in Thailand (bar Thai Rung) are majority foreign owned and in most cases 100% foreign owned. Toyota for example may buy plastic and steel molded parts from Thai Summit, the chassis, engine and body are manufactured and assembled in one of the 3 factories in Thailand they own themselves. 

 

 

But  in which  national economy is the profit  majority despite the   business  structure??

[CaptainNemo]

On 8/18/2019 at 4:38 PM, meand said:

If every westerner flew out of Thailand tomorrow they would be fine. We are the only ones who do not seem to realize that. 

 

Sure, some businesses would be hurt, but places like Taco joints and bars. Do you think Thais really care? 

 

Take Huawei as an example, no US sales, and now second place in the world behind Samsung in phone sales. 

 

Life goes on, the average deal in Thailand is between Thais and other Thai or Asian companies. Foreigners think the red carpet should be laid out for them because they feel the entire economy would collapse without them. This is the problem, the entitlement.

 

The truth is Pattaya and Walking Street would shut down, and Thailand would probably be better off for it. The truth is not popular, but it is still the truth. 

It might seem cool and switched on to say such things but it belies a lack of understanding of the role the west plays in Asia.

 

Ever since Marco Polo, Jorge Alvares, Constantine Phaulkon, the west has played a crucial role in Asia of exposing it to challenge, and forcing it to raise it's game. The British turned China, Burma, and Malaya over; the French turned Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia over; the Dutch and British turned Indonesia over.

in 1853 Commodore Perry forced Japan to open up, and all of these things benefited the far east in the long run, English is the global language of business, science, trade, education, modernity.

People may go on about China, but you can't pretend that Asia doesn't look to the Anglosphere for cultural references and influence.

In Thailand, there are lots of people studying Japanese and some learning Chinese, but overwhelmingly they learn English, and it's not just the language they are learning, but the way of thinking, because the truth is that the modern world we live in is the English world. London is the cultural and economic centre of the world. New York, LA, SF, Paris, Milan, Berlin, Barcelona, Tokyo, all have their influence, but there's more to trade and commerce than simply numbers. I've seen articles doing simplistic analysis of the impact of Chinese tourism and it's value, but its value is limited, because when push comes to shove there is a cultural hierarchy in the world, and culture trumps economics. No matter how much the Chinese spend, not many people want to be Chinese, but many people want to be of the major countries of the Anglosphere. Yes, there's a fad in Asia for Korea, but its limited. Japan's out of favour, and in the end, the fact that everyone sees learning English as an essential norm places a different value on Anglospheric tourism.  This is not entitlement, it's just reality.

Walking Street in Pattaya is seedy and filled with incomers from non-Anglosphere places, it's not what it was, it's not a barometer.

Not many farang would socialise with Chinese, Arabs, and Indians, honestly. Japan is important I agree.

...and lets be honest, how many Thais queue up to go to China, Arabia, and India versus USA, UK, Canada, Australia, NZ, and EU? We know where the quality in the world is, why pretend it's somewhere else?

Hong Kong and Singapore are farang-influenced places, and Japan and Korea are too but in different ways.

Western tourism would be more missed in Thailand than you might imagine, because it brings with it more positive cultural, economic, and political, baggage than the alternatives.

[CaptainNemo]

On 8/21/2019 at 5:38 PM, Airbagwill said:

they have a program to make and launch satellites by 2020.

 

My Thai Mrs works in the European space satellite industry, and can assure you that Thai satellites are entirely bulit in France by French people, with some UK tech support in components. They do have some uni students who play around with cubesats, but it's just playing.

Edited September 14, 2019 by CaptainNemo

[swanny321]

  

  

On 8/18/2019 at 10:38 AM, meand said:

If every westerner flew out of Thailand tomorrow they would be fine. We are the only ones who do not seem to realize that. 

   Pull the other one.If the wealthy tourists abandoned the 5 star hotels there'd be hell to pay!

[Gulfsailor]

18 minutes ago, CaptainNemo said:

It might seem cool and switched on to say such things but it belies a lack of understanding of the role the west plays in Asia.

 

Ever since Marco Polo, Jorge Alvares, Constantine Phaulkon, the west has played a crucial role in Asia of exposing it to challenge, and forcing it to raise it's game. The British turned China, Burma, and Malaya over; the French turned Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia over; the Dutch and British turned Indonesia over.

in 1853 Commodore Perry forced Japan to open up, and all of these things benefited the far east in the long run, English is the global language of business, science, trade, education, modernity.

People may go on about China, but you can't pretend that Asia doesn't look to the Anglosphere for cultural references and influence.

In Thailand, there are lots of people studying Japanese and some learning Chinese, but overwhelmingly they learn English, and it's not just the language they are learning, but the way of thinking, because the truth is that the modern world we live in is the English world. London is the cultural and economic centre of the world. New York, LA, SF, Paris, Milan, Berlin, Barcelona, Tokyo, all have their influence, but there's more to trade and commerce than simply numbers. I've seen articles doing simplistic analysis of the impact of Chinese tourism and it's value, but its value is limited, because when push comes to shove there is a cultural hierarchy in the world, and culture trumps economics. No matter how much the Chinese spend, not many people want to be Chinese, but many people want to be of the major countries of the Anglosphere. Yes, there's a fad in Asia for Korea, but its limited. Japan's out of favour, and in the end, the fact that everyone sees learning English as an essential norm places a different value on Anglospheric tourism.  This is not entitlement, it's just reality.

Walking Street in Pattaya is seedy and filled with incomers from non-Anglosphere places, it's not what it was, it's not a barometer.

Not many farang would socialise with Chinese, Arabs, and Indians, honestly. Japan is important I agree.

...and lets be honest, how many Thais queue up to go to China, Arabia, and India versus USA, UK, Canada, Australia, NZ, and EU? We know where the quality in the world is, why pretend it's somewhere else?

Hong Kong and Singapore are farang-influenced places, and Japan and Korea are too but in different ways.

Western tourism would be more missed in Thailand than you might imagine, because it brings with it more positive cultural, economic, and political, baggage than the alternatives.

Sure, the West had its influence in Thailand and most regions in the world (Not always to its advantage I must say!), but that influence is diminishing rapidly. To think more Thais travel to Europe and the Americas than to East Asia is very naive. Thais spent over 3 times more total traveler days and 3 times more total money in East Asia (China, but mostly Korea and Japan) than in all European and American countries combined. Trust me when I say that a lot more Thais are interested in East Asian culture than in Western culture. 

[ThomasThBKK]

32 minutes ago, Gulfsailor said:

Sure, the West had its influence in Thailand and most regions in the world (Not always to its advantage I must say!), but that influence is diminishing rapidly. To think more Thais travel to Europe and the Americas than to East Asia is very naive. Thais spent over 3 times more total traveler days and 3 times more total money in East Asia (China, but mostly Korea and Japan) than in all European and American countries combined. Trust me when I say that a lot more Thais are interested in East Asian culture than in Western culture. 

Ease of traveling is the main criteria in every tourism market, that's why thais travel in asia, that's why europeans travel in europe and that's why many americans do domestic holidays.

 

Nothing to do with not wanting to see western culture. 

Japanese travel from thais is only booming since they got rid of the visa requirement, same for korea.

 

 

https://www.ttrweekly.com/site/2018/03/thai-outbound-travel-takes-off/

 

Quote

Ease of accessibility will become a major determinant of future destination choice. Japan, which eliminated visas for Thais in 2013, has become the fastest growing destination for Thai travellers. Korea and Taiwan have followed the Japanese lead, and Russia is next.

 

Quote

Says the report, “Nearly 90% of the documentation required is identical, with complicated variations in the rules and regulations. Technologically, it should be possible for some kind of a single-visa system to be worked out. Aside from being a money-spinning profit centre, it is not clear what security or immigration threats these visa-requiring countries are hoping to alleviate. Some of the questions asked in the application forms are totally irrelevant. The requirement for proof of financial support is also questionable in an era when thousands of well-off Thais are well-armed with credit cards and far better off financially than citizens of the visa-requiring countries.”

 

 

 

[CaptainNemo]

11 hours ago, Gulfsailor said:

Sure, the West had its influence in Thailand and most regions in the world (Not always to its advantage I must say!), but that influence is diminishing rapidly. To think more Thais travel to Europe and the Americas than to East Asia is very naive. Thais spent over 3 times more total traveler days and 3 times more total money in East Asia (China, but mostly Korea and Japan) than in all European and American countries combined. Trust me when I say that a lot more Thais are interested in East Asian culture than in Western culture. 

They may do, but what they get from Eorth-East Asia is not the same as what they get from the Anglosphere and Western Europe.

 

Human beings are a bit more sophisticated than the glib proclamations about China this and that.

I studied Chinese and Japanese (including "area studies"), at uni years ago, and I was always bemused by said "glib proclamations" about China, by Sinophiles. Only certain bits of China are important, and many aspects of those places are really not attractive.

 

For all the insistance that China is about to dominate Thai tourism, one could equally point to all the reported disquiet towards Chinese tourists, described online; and not forgetting that for many Chinese tourists, Thailand is nothing special, just another one of those little countries to the south.

 

As far as I can see, every country's relationship with every other country is usually unique, because the interaction between the people and cultures is usually unique.

China might have vast numbers of new upper working class and lower middle class people itching to travel, but China can't compete with countries with strong and attractive cultural identities that are more attractive than theirs.

 

To think that more Thais won't travel to Europe for tourism, family reunion, and study as they become wealthier is naive. As explained above, they travel more to Asia because it's cheaper and easier, not because it's better. There is a hierarchy of aspiration, and China is not at the top of it for many East Asians.

 

Talking about current visitor numbers and using that to suppose that there's more interest in those countries than in the West is misconceived. If every Thai citizen had a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, chances are the vast majority wouldn't be hurrying to China, they might be visiting Rome, New York, Paris and other iconic places, because they are culturally stronger and more attractive.

 

Moreover, Asia is not a monolith. Thais travel to Japan for work and modernity, to Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore etc.. for similar reasons. I have met Thai students of Chinese in Chinese cities, and even spoken Chinese to a girl in a convenience store in Aranyaprathet, who's never been outside Thailand and isn't Chinese, but they are a small minority.

The job market in Thailand is more for English and Japanese language skills, and Chinese, like Korean, remains a minority sport, save for those with Chinese ancestry.

 

Most Chinese would rather go and study at an average English, Irish, American, Canadian, Australian, or New Zealand university than a top Chinese one, not just because of the exposure to the English language or the credibility of the qualification, but because of the opportunity to live the life that they see in Anglosphere films and music videos - it's a form of validation.

 

It's difficult to argue that the influence of western culture hasn't been to the advantage of Thailand and other places. Our norms, our standards, things like rights, rule of law, and let's be honest, they originate from England (and OK, some bits from western Europe) and are the afterglow of it's empire, and it's progeny nations like the UK (England came before the UK), America, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand et al..

I remember once in the main hall of a UK university a Thai student going on about how Britain didn't have any culture, and I could only say, that the reason why it seems like that is because the global modern culture, is our culture - you're living in it to some extent, wherever there is modernity in the world.

 

I've seen articles written like spreadsheets saying well there's x million Chinese tourists, that means...

No it doesn't.

Having Anglosphere and Western European tourists will remain valuable and important beyond simply how many trinkets and dinners they buy, because the locals know that when a western tourist enters your venue, it becomes instantly more interesting to all the non-western tourists, because like it or not, western culture is the world's dominant "soft power" culture, and every other culture covertly aspires to it.

 

It's not just about endless skin-whitening and eyelid operation adverts, but the whole deal, the western house, the western brandnames, the western lifestyle.

Yes, there will be a strata of businesses that just want pile 'em high numbers, but valuable western-tourist-dependent stratas of business will remain... the world isn't going to become planet China, and what's happening in Hong Kong right now gives you a hint as to why not.
 

Edited September 15, 2019 by CaptainNemo

[sunnyboy2018]

On 8/19/2019 at 9:14 AM, Straight8 said:

A cashier. Hmmm, not the smartest tool in the shed to say it doesn't matter. Just shows ignorance and most likely something she may have seen or heard a long time ago and has NFI. A cashiers salary and the current state of prices to exchange, bet she aint never gonna see Thailand.

 

You dont need to have your intellectual brilliance to enjoy a holiday abroad. Nor does the exchange rate have to be perfect. It might help not to be a closed minded snob.

[Airbagwill]

On 9/14/2019 at 11:27 PM, CaptainNemo said:

My Thai Mrs works in the European space satellite industry, and can assure you that Thai satellites are entirely bulit in France by French people, with some UK tech support in components. They do have some uni students who play around with cubesats, but it's just playing.

https://thaiembdc.org/2018/12/24/first-thai-made-satellite-launched-from-california/