Thailand's September foreign tourist arrivals up 10% year-on-year - ministry

[KhunKenAP]

 

I have lived here almost 20 years. TAT statistics always show a increase year over year no matter what. My prove of the actual statistic's is how busy is it in downtown Pattaya on Walking Street. Through 2019, the numbers have been shrinking.

 

Therefore, I never believe TAT statistics.

[Bangkok Barry]

Every report, except those coming out of TAT, say that numbers are down, tourist businesses are in the dumps and many hotels are half-empty or worse. So I wonder where these masses of tourists are hiding and where they are staying.

[Bangkok Barry]

I'm amazed that no-one in the government has yet blamed foreigners for the lack of tourist business. After all, it can't be the Thai's fault, can it. Nothing ever is, and they'll tell you they are perfect hosts.

[marqus12]

My girlfriend is in the hospital. She has Dengue fever, her friend too.
Mosquitoes apparently bit them at work which is in the tourist center

of the famous island, some tourists also fell victim to.

 

For the first time in years when we are on this island,

I hear about dengue cases here.

There is no money for pesticide for mosquito poisoning???
At least the girl has a hospital for free ... so you didn't save money anyway !

In any case, my congratulations to "the high-quality resort".

[DrTuner]

14 minutes ago, Bangkok Barry said:

So I wonder where these masses of tourists are hiding and where they are staying.

Chinese run/co-owned illegal condo hotels like the Base, purpose built "attactions" like the floating market in Pattaya, Chinese run/co-owned restaurants.. anything where you can fleece the herds and the money flows back to Chinese. It's a well oiled machine that farangs don't belong in, that's why you don't see it.

[DrTuner]

10 minutes ago, marqus12 said:

My girlfriend is in the hospital. She has Dengue fever, her friend too.
Mosquitoes apparently bit them at work which is in the tourist center

of the famous island, some tourists also fell victim to.

 

For the first time in years when we are on this island,

I hear about dengue cases here.

There is no money for pesticide for mosquito poisoning???
At least the girl has a hospital for free ... so you didn't save money anyway !

In any case, my congratulations to "the high-quality resort".

Rainy season. No amount of fumigation helps, there will always be mozzies this time of the year. Stay away or wear DEET religiously.

 

And after this season comes what used to be the "high season", now known as smoke-a-tourist rice field burning annual SEA bonanza. Enjoy the PM2.5.

Edited October 30, 2019 by DrTuner

[Duck J Butters]

22 hours ago, Sticky Wicket said:

You think the PM is a decent and honourable man, you will believe anything for some reason.

Very bizarre mindset

 

TV is an alt-left globalist propaganda group  used to spread dangerously totalitarian western political correctness and  “safe space” cancel culture. They believe in rubbish like egalitarianism, most likely funded by the UK government as a means of undermining any governments that contradict their “woke” “beta male “soy boy” ideals. Egalitarianism will end your country as we are seeing with Sweden, UK, and the United States. All men and women cannot be equal. Anyways, Thailand is best not to pay attention to these propagandists. No one is leaving Thailand. Country is awesome. That said, 53% of small businesses had to close this year in Thailand. Not a good sign. A global recession is coming for sure. I would pull out of the Thai / US stock market and hold cash if I were you. Phuket beach front property coming at an extreme bargain in 3 years. Avg Phuket property will drop from 10 million baht to 3 million baht. HODL.

[marqus12]

7 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

Rainy season. No amount of fumigation helps, there will always be mozzies this time of the year. Stay away or wear DEET religiously.

7 years on the island, rainy season every year,
once much more tourists, never heard of any case of Dengue here .

[Timwin]

Pattaya region...easily 60 percent less tourists than during the last boom times of 2011-2015 and spending a lot less per tourist. Less and less westerners. Especially young adults are not coming anymore to spend six months to two years in Thailand.

 

Some Chinese groups but they only buy something from local 7-11s at best. Add to that dirty beaches making things even worse.

[Saint Nick]

51 minutes ago, Duck J Butters said:

TV is an alt-left globalist propaganda group  used to spread dangerously totalitarian western political correctness and  “safe space” cancel culture. They believe in rubbish like egalitarianism, most likely funded by the UK government as a means of undermining any governments that contradict their “woke” “beta male “soy boy” ideals. Egalitarianism will end your country as we are seeing with Sweden, UK, and the United States. All men and women cannot be equal. Anyways, Thailand is best not to pay attention to these propagandists. No one is leaving Thailand. Country is awesome. That said, 53% of small businesses had to close this year in Thailand. Not a good sign. A global recession is coming for sure. I would pull out of the Thai / US stock market and hold cash if I were you. Phuket beach front property coming at an extreme bargain in 3 years. Avg Phuket property will drop from 10 million baht to 3 million baht. HODL.

Wow!

Just ...wow!

It is hard to find posts with this amount of hogwash anywhere, these days!

Thanks for the brilliant satire!

 

...you were not serious...were you...?!

[GeorgeCross]

29 minutes ago, Timwin said:

Pattaya region...easily 60 percent less tourists than during the last boom times of 2011-2015 and spending a lot less per tourist. Less and less westerners. Especially young adults are not coming anymore to spend six months to two years in Thailand.

 

Some Chinese groups but they only buy something from local 7-11s at best. Add to that dirty beaches making things even worse.

 

but don't 7000 or so of them go to koh larn every day?

 

thats way more than westerners on walking street, even during the boom times

 

 

[Eye4you]

People get over it, time is and has been changing. Get down from your high horses and face reality. 

I read 10% of Chinese population hold a passport currently, and who knows how many percent of Indians are the owner of the passport- no denying their economic power is growing. You may have more disposable income for now, but even you spend twice as much of those of Indians and Chinese tourists, your headcounts are not enough to compete with them, even more so in the future.

I spent four months in Europe last summer and was packed with Chinese tourists in every city I visited. Honestly, it was not pleasant as I hoped for relaxing holiday, but that's the way it is. 

European countries benefit from tourism as well, yes, from Chinese. Followed by Indians soon enough.

[kevinmartyn]

This information is total rubbish! I have seen first hand recently tourest have greatly gone down. Just ask the working girls!  Hotels etc. The Government is just lying!

[sawadee1947]

They learned a lot from Boris ????????

[natway09]

OK so if they are here where the heck are they hiding??

[joecoolfrog]

On 10/29/2019 at 7:51 AM, BobbyL said:

Not denying its truth, as I am not someone who posts about tourists numbers declining as I genuinely have no idea, However, are they really able to calculate this within 3 - 4 weeks?

 

A total of 2.9 million tourists in September spent 139.6 billion baht ($4.62 billion), up 8.73% from a year earlier.

No they cannot.

[taxin]

On 10/29/2019 at 2:51 PM, BobbyL said:

 

A total of 2.9 million tourists in September spent 139.6 billion baht ($4.62 billion), up 8.73% from a year earlier.

This may well be the case, but what the TAT dont mention (and do not really care) is the 30% increase in the amount of hotel rooms in the major tourist destinations, no mention the average occupancy of hotels for Sept is 30-40%, no mention @ 2.9 million tourists they are still 4 or 5 million short to fill the rooms.

 

[saengd]

11 minutes ago, taxin said:

This may well be the case, but what the TAT dont mention (and do not really care) is the 30% increase in the amount of hotel rooms in the major tourist destinations, no mention the average occupancy of hotels for Sept is 30-40%, no mention @ 2.9 million tourists they are still 4 or 5 million short to fill the rooms.

 

What does that have to do with the accuracy of the number of tourist arrivals. Just because the private sector jumped in and built more hotels and there's now an oversupply, that's their problem, what is TAT supposed to do, rush out and find 4/5 million more tourists, just to satisfy the supply! Tourism is a demand side issue, that's what tourist numbers are all about.

[taxin]

19 minutes ago, saengd said:

What does that have to do with the accuracy of the number of tourist arrivals. Just because the private sector jumped in and built more hotels and there's now an oversupply, that's their problem, what is TAT supposed to do, rush out and find 4/5 million more tourists, just to satisfy the supply! Tourism is a demand side issue, that's what tourist numbers are all about.

You missed my point, the oversupply of hotel rooms and the under performing loans for all these failing businesses (along with numerous other tourist related businesses) far exceeds any increase in tourist revenue.

 

I can assure you the Thai government will be more concerned about the billions of debt created from this oversupply, rather than a 10% increase in tourists (which will mostly be low spending Indians).

 

 

[saengd]

5 minutes ago, taxin said:

You missed my point, the oversupply of hotel rooms and the under performing loans for all these failing businesses (along with numerous other tourist related businesses) far exceeds any increase in tourist revenue.

 

I can assure you the Thai government will be more concerned about the billions of debt created from this oversupply, rather than a 10% increase in tourists (which will mostly be low spending Indians).

 

 

The banks in Thailand are generally very sound, some of them are very big also. You have to have confidence that banks have done due diligence when it came to lending money for new hotels, they are not stupid, as much as everyone may dislike them. The banks will have looked at the growth rate and sustainability of demand versus existing supply of rooms et al and loaned money on terms they are happy with.  

[Huckenfell]

On 10/29/2019 at 2:30 PM, RotBenz8888 said:

Amazing how they manage to collect those numbers....

With all these big new arrival numbers, why don't any of them come to Koh Samui where it is very quiet at the moment.

[michaellee]

Why is this country so hung up on tourist arriving every damn week ?? One news the tourist arrival is low next news the arrival is up....so what or which one is the correct figure?  Fsake!!! 

[Thomas Hannah]

On 10/29/2019 at 7:46 AM, steven100 said:

this can't be correct ….TVF farang keep telling us that everyone is leaving.  lol 

This is correct.I still know people that still go and live there.I was told that last christmass was very quiet.I lived there upto about 5 years ago.And pattaya was dead all year except for christmass and new year.But even then was very quiet to what it used to be.Im told now it is full of indians walking round spending no money.And many of them to one room.

[steven100]

21 minutes ago, Thomas Hannah said:

This is correct.I still know people that still go and live there.I was told that last christmass was very quiet.I lived there upto about 5 years ago.And pattaya was dead all year except for christmass and new year.But even then was very quiet to what it used to be.Im told now it is full of indians walking round spending no money.And many of them to one room.

so why all the Thai visa forum falang keep telling us expat have left because of TM30 and Thailand IO and corruption and pattaya dirty sea to swim and tuk tuk expensive. 

[Traubert]

12 hours ago, baansgr said:

Maybe if TAT and other related bodies told the truth,  they wouldn't get bashed  so much. It's obvious just looking around and speaking to owners of business that numbers are down and the worst for years.  last week I was at both immigration and Survanbumi,  never seen either place that quite in ten years. 

So people here were bellowing about queues at the airports, the authorities pledge to sort it out, then there's no queues at the airport but it has to be because incoming numbers are down, despite all evidence to the contrary.

 

Riiigghhtt... ????????

[drgoon]

On 10/29/2019 at 8:51 PM, BobbyL said:

Not denying its truth, as I am not someone who posts about tourists numbers declining as I genuinely have no idea, However, are they really able to calculate this within 3 - 4 weeks?

 

A total of 2.9 million tourists in September spent 139.6 billion baht ($4.62 billion), up 8.73% from a year earlier.

TAT...   the Hub of Number Crunching

[kramer2011]

On 10/30/2019 at 10:31 AM, saengd said:

Ask and you shall receive:

 

http://www.thaiwebsites.com/tourism-income-Thailand.asp

 

https://thethaiger.com/thai-life/travel/whos-coming-spending-tourist-numbers-2017

@saengd, I agree with you that there are a lot of forum members who merely want to degrade Thailand. I also admire your attempt to back up your arguments with empirical evidence.  However, your sources are questionable at best.

From your first "source:

"How are these data gathered?
We honestly do not know, but they have been reported for many years."

 

This hardly gives the reader confidence in the data you present on spending and raises questions the validity of your source material.  It is best to use solid sources to support your data not sources in which the author has no idea about how data is collected.  
That said, much of the debate on in this thread and numerous others centers around TAT. Many around here say it is total B.S. where others, more open minded/curious, wonder how they arrive at their conclusions.  Your second source just quotes TAT and should not be presented it as separate or independent verification--doing so is disingenuous. I am not saying TAT is wrong...in fact I have no idea.  But perhaps you might want to be open to the possibility that TAT has an agenda as do many of the Thailand haters on these threads.

Regards

[Traubert]

21 hours ago, GeorgeCross said:

 

but don't 7000 or so of them go to koh larn every day?

 

thats way more than westerners on walking street, even during the boom times

 

 

Oh stop it. You and your facts.

20 hours ago, Eye4you said:

People get over it, time is and has been changing. Get down from your high horses and face reality. 

I read 10% of Chinese population hold a passport currently, and who knows how many percent of Indians are the owner of the passport- no denying their economic power is growing. You may have more disposable income for now, but even you spend twice as much of those of Indians and Chinese tourists, your headcounts are not enough to compete with them, even more so in the future.

I spent four months in Europe last summer and was packed with Chinese tourists in every city I visited. Honestly, it was not pleasant as I hoped for relaxing holiday, but that's the way it is. 

European countries benefit from tourism as well, yes, from Chinese. Followed by Indians soon enough.

And you. Spoiling all the fun. It is a well known TV fact that Chinese tourists:

 

a) Arent coming anymore.

b)Only come in tourist groups.

c)Dont spend any money.

d)Spit everywhere.

e)Only dont spend any money in Chinese businesses (you work it out)

f)Run the illegal Airbnb industry.

g)Wash their underwear in condo pools.

h) Leave their empty dishes on restaurant tables.

g)Speak loudly.

h)Dont drink where they should.

 

and finally:

 

j) Dont go whoring, the freaks.

 

How very dare they? ????

 

 

[saengd]

42 minutes ago, kramer2011 said:

@saengd, I agree with you that there are a lot of forum members who merely want to degrade Thailand. I also admire your attempt to back up your arguments with empirical evidence.  However, your sources are questionable at best.

From your first "source:

"How are these data gathered?
We honestly do not know, but they have been reported for many years."

 

This hardly gives the reader confidence in the data you present on spending and raises questions the validity of your source material.  It is best to use solid sources to support your data not sources in which the author has no idea about how data is collected.  
That said, much of the debate on in this thread and numerous others centers around TAT. Many around here say it is total B.S. where others, more open minded/curious, wonder how they arrive at their conclusions.  Your second source just quotes TAT and should not be presented it as separate or independent verification--doing so is disingenuous. I am not saying TAT is wrong...in fact I have no idea.  But perhaps you might want to be open to the possibility that TAT has an agenda as do many of the Thailand haters on these threads.

Regards

I really don't want to make a thesis out of the subject because I've been round this loop many times previously. What I do want however is to demonstrate that there is data out there, if posters care to search for it, expecting me to find complete and conclusive data for them and complete the argument, just to have them walk away at the end, isn't going to happen.

 

And of course TAT has an agenda, they are duty bound to put a positive spin on things, that's their job. That said it's a question of whether you believe they are deliberately misleading or are simply not fully competent, I'm very firmly in the latter camp.

[ExpatOilWorker]

15 minutes ago, Traubert said:

 

h) Leave their empty dishes on restaurant tables.

 

 

I do that all the time, I thought that was the whole point of eating at a restaurant. 

How do you do it?