I have no reason to doubt the arrval numbers as they have tangible data to produce these figures. But which arrivals are counted as tourists?

 

I'm amazed to see an increase in Brits, but how many of these Brits and Europeans are enterd on the system multiple times as border runners and, increasingly, those that spend a couple of days in Thailand then returning for their flights home? Two arrivals for the price of one!

 

And the figures would indicate that most Malaysians and Laotians are extremely short stayers, weekenders at best, jusdging by the low amounts spent per head. Those figures also show that Europeans spend much more per head than the Chinese, though of course they stay longer. It would appear that Middle Easterners spend more than others, so we should expect a targeted marketing campaign there by the TAT.

 

Second best spenders per head? Us British!

Edited October 25, 20196 yr by madmitch

The smaller resorts usually get the European and Russian tourists. So those will be affected. 2% is a small fraction and probably smaller as the error margin (people using bkk as a hub to other countries).

 

Americans tend to stay at expensive places because they only have a short vacation and want to have it perfect.

 

Pattaya is a mostly a place where very naive first timers go or experienced bar hangers. The last group is probably switching from a 1 time a year to a 1 every 2 year schedule or seeking cheaper alternatives.

 

I do not expect to see halve empty resorts when I will be there in December/January. Although I am a bit surprised I can still book popular places at this moment which often were sold out previous years.

 

1 minute ago, Just Weird said:

"...readers of TVF know that they send most Tourists back home..."

Yes, six confirmed cases, or thereabouts, this year, so far!

I knew I forgot something.......here it is..... ????

10 minutes ago, CHdiver said:

12 minutes ago, Just Weird said:

"...readers of TVF know that they send most Tourists back home..."

Yes, six confirmed cases, or thereabouts, this year, so far!

I knew I forgot something.......here it is..... ????

Glad I could help you.  Just to emphasise the seriousness of the figures of all those refused entry, it's 0.00002% up to last month.  

 

But let's say it was ten times my number of 6 refusals, I'll give you 600 refusals just for the hell of it, the percentage would still be just 0.002%.  Shocking, eh?

Edited October 25, 20196 yr by Just Weird

I don't have a problem with the figures or reporting if you do, don't ever look at any Gov figures or business reporting.

 

However I am lazy and could someone please drop that into a table for me then work out spend by tourist by country. Then apply rough cost of servicing.

 

For every "farang" lost you need 2 - 3 Chinese to make up income but 2 - 3 times the servicing cost.

 

Keep going further and you'd see just how much an expats worth. A s...load more AND their paying the lot!

41 minutes ago, SmartyMarty said:

but if the hotels are all just half full, where are all these tourists staying?

That is more about there being too many hotels! Plus Airbnb will be having a affect.

43 minutes ago, CHdiver said:

Clearly fake news, at least readers of TVF know that they send most Tourists back home, before they can enter the LOS.

Utter nonsense! Millions enter the country for tourism every year. A few get denied and they Only tend to be the ones trying to stay too long for tourism.

40 minutes ago, Just Weird said:

Why "must I know that", did I say that I knew?   Could I guess if I wanted to just like you did?   You're the one who seemed to be suggesting that your guesswork had some credibility.

Sure, take a guess, it's better than nothing. Then, if we get lucky, somebody will leak the actual source. Has happened more than once.

 

About credibility, as TAT is not disclosing the source, theirs is zero. Or if they are guessing, well, a tiny bit better than zero, depending on who is doing the guessing.

Edited October 25, 20196 yr by DrTuner

39 minutes ago, madmitch said:

I have no reason to doubt the arrval numbers as they have tangible data to produce these figures. But which arrivals are counted as tourists?

I dug into it here: 

 

2 hours ago, Just Weird said:

What do you base that gem on?

 

>> Tourist numbers from Europe dropped to 4,698,239 people, down 1.83 per cent

 

>> the United Kingdom with 719,599, up 0.84 per cent,

 

I really do not believe that tourists numbers from the UK are going up.  Even in Spain these numbers are going down due to poor economic prospects and uncertainty. But instead of going to Spain they decided to go to Thailand?

 

I cannot support it with numbers. But it seems very unlikely.

 

 

5 minutes ago, dimitriv said:

 

>> Tourist numbers from Europe dropped to 4,698,239 people, down 1.83 per cent

 

>> the United Kingdom with 719,599, up 0.84 per cent,

 

I really do not believe that tourists numbers from the UK are going up.  Even in Spain these numbers are going down due to poor economic prospects and uncertainty. But instead of going to Spain they decided to go to Thailand?

 

I cannot support it with numbers. But it seems very unlikely.

 

 

Maybe it's the fleeing expats coming one last time to dispose of their remaining assets.

5 minutes ago, dimitriv said:

 

>> Tourist numbers from Europe dropped to 4,698,239 people, down 1.83 per cent

 

>> the United Kingdom with 719,599, up 0.84 per cent,

 

I really do not believe that tourists numbers from the UK are going up.  Even in Spain these numbers are going down due to poor economic prospects and uncertainty. But instead of going to Spain they decided to go to Thailand?

 

I cannot support it with numbers. But it seems very unlikely.

 

 

Good grief...

Good news , all the closed down  shop fronts will reopen to welcome all those millions ????????????

I arrived here from China a couple of weeks ago. The aircraft was mostly empty. Go figure.

 

Anyway I was happy to stretch out on four seats in the middle instead of three at the window. Oh did I mention there was no lineup at immigration.....go figure.

1 hour ago, elviajero said:

I agree. All countries quote revenue based on the numbers of visitors, but I've no idea how they determine the revenue per head. 

 

You ask 100 people from 1 country how much they spent, and assume that all people from that country behaved the same.  I don't think there is another way to do this.

 

You cannot track spending with tax. In Thailand many people do not pay tax. You can look at hotels, but many people do not stay at official hotels. From a lot of money spent n shops it will be difficult to decide if this is from citizens or tourists. 

 

The above method is also not very reliable. Especially not if the baht went up after asking tourists what they spent a couple of years ago. It will also depend on what kind of tourists you ask. If you ask this to tourist staying in the Hilton on Sukhumvit you will get other numbers than when you ask in a cheap unregistered hotel. It is easy to make "mistakes". 

 

 

 

16 minutes ago, Just Weird said:

Good grief...

I know... Maybe we should not discuss anything on a discussion forum unless it has been peer reviewed and approved prior to publication.

 

Maybe we could all use the search tool to find the countless TAT announcements that state that tourist numbers are down the toilet.. That was the whole argument behind the 'eat, spend, travel, scheme by the government recently to encourage domestic tourism as international tourist numbers were well down on expectations. But now apparently they are not.  So who is sandpapering the truth. The government, TAT...or is it all fake news. 

9 minutes ago, dimitriv said:

 

You ask 100 people from 1 country how much they spent, and assume that all people from that country behaved the same.  I don't think there is another way to do this.

 

You cannot track spending with tax. In Thailand many people do not pay tax. You can look at hotels, but many people do not stay at official hotels. From a lot of money spent n shops it will be difficult to decide if this is from citizens or tourists. 

 

The above method is also not very reliable. Especially not if the baht went up after asking tourists what they spent a couple of years ago. It will also depend on what kind of tourists you ask. If you ask this to tourist staying in the Hilton on Sukhumvit you will get other numbers than when you ask in a cheap unregistered hotel. It is easy to make "mistakes". 

 

 

 

Wouldn't the figures be easy to calculate, foreign exchange divided by number of tourists..

If there were 10 Bolivians here last month and 10,000 baht of Bolivian currency exchanged last month, they spent on average 1,000 baht each.

 

Any day/week /month they know how many tourists are here and any day/week/month they know how much money was exchanged at ATMs, currency booths etc.

6 minutes ago, jonclark said:

I know... Maybe we should not discuss anything on a discussion forum unless it has been peer reviewed and approved prior to publication.

I thought TVF is the peer review.

Well, those figures (mostly likely from TATs own random number generator) are a bit puzzling to me.
They state, that a total of 29,465,732 people visited Thailand between January and September.
The highest numbers of visitors were from China, making up 8,518,031 people.
Okay. 8,518,031 Chinese, right? Thats about 28.91% of all tourists and indeed the largest group.

 

But just two day ago, we could read here that arrivals from China make up 58.1% of all tourists, that would have been 17,119,590 Chinese tourists from Jan 1st 'til Sept 30th this year, if those 29.465 millions are correct.
 

.... just me 2 cents .....

3 minutes ago, Peterbilt said:

Well, those figures (mostly likely from TATs own random number generator) are a bit puzzling to me.
They state, that a total of 29,465,732 people visited Thailand between January and September.
The highest numbers of visitors were from China, making up 8,518,031 people.
Okay. 8,518,031 Chinese, right? Thats about 28.91% of all tourists and indeed the largest group.

 

But just two day ago, we could read here that arrivals from China make up 58.1% of all tourists, that would have been 17,119,590 Chinese tourists from Jan 1st 'til Sept 30th this year, if those 29.465 millions are correct.
 

.... just me 2 cents .....

That 58.1% might have been a snapshot of a specific timeframe, like a day? 

4 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

That 58.1% might have been a snapshot of a specific timeframe, like a day? 

Don't think so.
They are appearing in the stats published by the TAT again and again.

33 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

I thought TVF is the peer review.

Love the sarcasm.. 

50 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

Wouldn't the figures be easy to calculate, foreign exchange divided by number of tourists..

If there were 10 Bolivians here last month and 10,000 baht of Bolivian currency exchanged last month, they spent on average 1,000 baht each.

 

Any day/week /month they know how many tourists are here and any day/week/month they know how much money was exchanged at ATMs, currency booths etc.

 

You assume that foreign currency is only exchanged by tourists. While the majority of people I see in line at exchange offices in BKK are Thai. You also assume that Bolivians exchange Bolivian currency. While it seems more likely to me that they will travel with USD. And what to do with people spending Euro's ?

 

You can look at ATM withdrawals if they have access to this information. But then you rule out people paying with their cards directly. You don't take into account cash money brought into the country. And you don't take into account accommodation booked from abroad and paid abroad.

 

Every number is based on a lot of assumptions.

 

 

Edited October 25, 20196 yr by dimitriv

Statistics, lies? Yep.

usual load of B/S from TAT. Came through swampy a couple of weeks ago, no queues at immigration, not so many tourists buses clogging the streets of Pattaya and jomtein, most parked up around town these days. You can disregard the numbers from adjoining countries as they are shopping or working. 

2 hours ago, Peterw42 said:

Wouldn't the figures be easy to calculate, foreign exchange divided by number of tourists..

If there were 10 Bolivians here last month and 10,000 baht of Bolivian currency exchanged last month, they spent on average 1,000 baht each.

 

Any day/week /month they know how many tourists are here and any day/week/month they know how much money was exchanged at ATMs, currency booths etc.

Spot on. Just wait for the desperate denials. Like they dont know who is a tourist, who is in transit, blah blah...

 

Considering its got sweet fanny adams to do with anyone its a dead horse they love to flog.

 

TM6? Who fills that out? Sob...

5 hours ago, KhunKenAP said:

On Walking Street last night many Chinese tours. Even one Muslimmate told me so I visible is  tour. Nary a Farang face.

 

What's the point of disputing the official figures anyway? Hoping that the immigration would allow unlimited border runs again?

It wouldn't surprise me if the TAT is counting the flight attendants and pilots as tourists when they land. Anything to try and cover up the issue.

Edited October 25, 20196 yr by SteveK

Again....seriously almost 1.4 million Laotions took holidays in Thailand...considering their population is only 6.5 million....almost all western nation stats are down, which can be seen quite obviously on the streets of Thailand...Malaysian sexpats for a few hours at Sadao total over 2 million..just yet more proof that tourism in Thailand is in a serious decline.