‘Eat, Shop, Spend’ travellers dish out Bt628m

By The Nation

 

 

The number of people applying for the government’s “Eat, Shop, Spend” travel-and-business promotion in its first 10 days topped out at the daily limit of one million, with around 200,000 proving ineligible to register.

 

Lavaron Sangsnit, director-general of the Fiscal Policy Office, said on Wednesday (October 2) that applications would continue being accepted until registration reached 10 million.

 

He said everyone who applied in the first seven days – 5,538,368 people – had qualified.

 

The vast majority were registered within the first six days and have received confirmation by SMS, while the remaining 814,776 can expect a digital alert on Wednesday.

 

In the first five days, 706,450 registrants spent a combined Bt628 million using G-wallet. Half of that amount, about Bt330 million, was spent at shops selling OTOP products, at community stores and at discount-price Thong Fah Pracha Rat outlets.

 

Another Bt98 million was spent on food and Bt10 million on hotel accommodations.

 

A further Bt142 million was spent at large stores with multiple branches, representing 22 per cent of the five-day total.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/business/30376997

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2019-10-02

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22 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

In the first five days, 706,450 registrants spent a combined Bt628 million using G-wallet. Half of that amount, about Bt330 million, was spent at shops selling OTOP products, at community stores and at discount-price Thong Fah Pracha Rat outlets.

This is the promotion to encourage domestic tourism? That must mean all the 706,450 registrants went to another province other than their own, in order to spend the money?

46 minutes ago, bluesofa said:

This is the promotion to encourage domestic tourism? That must mean all the 706,450 registrants went to another province other than their own, in order to spend the money?

Right, but also just going over the province border I think, to get the deal, then drive back home.

Did they avoid dual pricing?

16 minutes ago, Colabamumbai said:

Did they avoid dual pricing?

Ha ha!

If there were two competing shops close by, perhaps they opted for 'duel pricing' in order to win the customer?

I am not sure if this is to do with propping up the economy , or buying hearts and minds?

 

Edited October 3, 20196 yr by NE1

'In the first five days, 706,450 registrants spent a combined Bt628 million using G-wallet.'

 

Seen all the problems registering, and the needed inter provincial travel to reimburse, these numbers are highly unlikely. 

 

7 minutes ago, SoilSpoil said:

'In the first five days, 706,450 registrants spent a combined Bt628 million using G-wallet.'

 

Seen all the problems registering, and the needed inter provincial travel to reimburse, these numbers are highly unlikely.

I do hope you're not accusing the government of issuing 'fake news'?

From what I saw on the Thai TV, the cues seemed to be full of people in army/police uniforms getting a handout

13 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

registrants spent a combined Bt628 million

Let's be clear - the government's “Eat, Shop, Spend” (ESS) travel-and-business promotion is funded by the government through taxes collected from the Thai taxpayers. For those people who qualified for the funds it is simply a redistribution, albeit businesses supporting the program may get part of the funds as fees.

My point is that the public expenditure of the ESS funds will not improve the GDP growth rate any more than the government's short-term agriculture subsidies. The ESS program may improve the Consumer Confidence Index because people think they are getting something for nothing. But such change would be artificial as an manipulative economic tool by the government.

WOW so smart this plan ????

90% of Thais cannot afford a holiday, so get nothing.

15 hours ago, NE1 said:

I am not sure if this is to do with propping up the economy , or buying hearts and minds?

 

Double fail then

Could this type of promotion be tied to the selling of data. Is the govt. banking on the hope of being able to sell millions of peoples data?