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

[kramer2011]

1 hour ago, saengd said:

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.

 

Fair enough...but if TAT is not fully competent, why do you present their data as proof that tourist numbers are up?  Rather misleading approach...no?

[saengd]

36 minutes ago, kramer2011 said:

 

Fair enough...but if TAT is not fully competent, why do you present their data as proof that tourist numbers are up?  Rather misleading approach...no?

As said previously, to demonstrate that there is tourist expense/demographic data out there on the web that posters can search for, evaluate and decide to use or not. It's worth pointing out here that such data exists for many countries including the US and the UK and Europe hence this is not just a creation of TAT alone.

[DrTuner]

3 hours ago, saengd said:

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.

Been searching for the raw data of expenditure per head per nationality for years now. It ain't out there, it's guarded by TAT as a secret. PRobably because the source is something laughable like King Power receipts.

[saengd]

14 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

Been searching for the raw data of expenditure per head per nationality for years now. It ain't out there, it's guarded by TAT as a secret. PRobably because the source is something laughable like King Power receipts.

You probably won't find them all in one place, you'll likely have to cross reference several documents, here's a couple more for those who are interested:

 

https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/pdf/10.18111/9789284419876

 

http://statbbi.nso.go.th/staticreport/page/sector/en/17.aspx

 

http://www.atta.or.th/?p=4019

[kramer2011]

3 hours ago, saengd said:

 

 

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.

And post 53:

"Tourist numbers and their spending habits are measured using the sampling technique. TAT has agreements with over a thousand businesses in each of the major tourist centres whereby they are sent details of tourist expenditure every week, this is supplemented by Immi. statistics of arrivals. Specific hotels for example are asked to record how many foreign visitors, their country of origin, number of nights stay and details of how much they spent. Tour operators provide similar information, as does restaurants large and small, department stores, 7/11's and even small mom and pop stores. That information is aggregated, extrapolated, averaged and modelled, using data from the same businesses every time helps reduce business specific distortion.

It's not a fool proof system but over time it can be fairly reliable..."

 

So which is it...TAT is incompetent or they are using sound techniques to measure tourist spending habits?

 

[saengd]

6 minutes ago, kramer2011 said:

And post 53:

"Tourist numbers and their spending habits are measured using the sampling technique. TAT has agreements with over a thousand businesses in each of the major tourist centres whereby they are sent details of tourist expenditure every week, this is supplemented by Immi. statistics of arrivals. Specific hotels for example are asked to record how many foreign visitors, their country of origin, number of nights stay and details of how much they spent. Tour operators provide similar information, as does restaurants large and small, department stores, 7/11's and even small mom and pop stores. That information is aggregated, extrapolated, averaged and modelled, using data from the same businesses every time helps reduce business specific distortion.

It's not a fool proof system but over time it can be fairly reliable..."

 

So which is it...TAT is incompetent or they are using sound techniques to measure tourist spending habits?

 

Not fully competent and incompetent are not the same thing, perhaps better to describe them as not always fully competent but that's playing word games. I believe they use widely accepted sound measurement techniques, most Western countries have proved that. But the accuracy of their numbers every time and the context in which they are displayed, aren't always 100%. Exactly what others chose to believe on these things is entirely up to them, I'm merely shedding light on the parts of the process that I know of.

[DrTuner]

On 10/30/2019 at 6:07 AM, saengd said:

Tourist numbers and their spending habits are measured using the sampling technique. TAT has agreements with over a thousand businesses in each of the major tourist centres whereby they are sent details of tourist expenditure every week, this is supplemented by Immi. statistics of arrivals. Specific hotels for example are asked to record how many foreign visitors, their country of origin, number of nights stay and details of how much they spent. Tour operators provide similar information, as does restaurants large and small, department stores, 7/11's and even small mom and pop stores. That information is aggregated, extrapolated, averaged and modelled, using data from the same businesses every time helps reduce business specific distortion.

Care to give a list of those thousands of businesses and how they know the nationality of the customers? Which tour operators? 7's and mom&pops would not know the nationality. 

 

Or ist this just generic information of how it could be done?

[DrTuner]

27 minutes ago, saengd said:

You probably won't find them all in one place, you'll likely have to cross reference several documents, here's a couple more for those who are interested:

 

https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/pdf/10.18111/9789284419876

 

http://statbbi.nso.go.th/staticreport/page/sector/en/17.aspx

 

http://www.atta.or.th/?p=4019

Thanks, I'll dig into it. The NSO excel already states: 'Source: Office of the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Tourism and Sports'. Goes right back to the black hole.

 

Interesting data though, especially:  'Length of Stay of International Tourist Arrivals to Thailand by Country of Residence: 2009 - 2018' http://statbbi.nso.go.th/staticreport/Page/sector/EN/report/sector_17_7_EN_.xlsx . I'd be very interested in seeing the actual statistical distribution behind this data.

Edited October 31, 2019 by DrTuner

[saengd]

8 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

Care to give a list of those thousands of businesses and how they know the nationality of the customers? Which tour operators? 7's and mom&pops would not know the nationality. 

 

Or ist this just generic information of how it could be done?

What I set out previously on the sampling process is what I have learned over twenty years of living here, reading newspapers, talking to people and reading the many many discussions on this subject on TVF and similar. I don't think I know much more than I've already set out.

 

But to answer your question in part: I don't think TAT cares to know the nationality of people who spend X at mom and pop stores, they probably only care about tourist spend overall. Hotels and restaurants however will probably know nationality, if from no other source than say credit card info.

[DrTuner]

1 hour ago, saengd said:

But to answer your question in part: I don't think TAT cares to know the nationality of people who spend X at mom and pop stores, they probably only care about tourist spend overall. Hotels and restaurants however will probably know nationality, if from no other source than say credit card info.

Mastercard does stats, but they too quote TAT as the source. I think it'd be a privacy breach if the card companies gave detailed info to TAT. 

 

Hotels and restaurants - why would they bother reporting to TAT? Is there an incentive or regulation? 

 

Mom&pop and 7 & co- cash transactions are completely off stats. 

 

The point: Why bother publishing expenditure per nationality, when the dataset is either made up or from a very limited number of sources.

[saengd]

18 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

Mastercard does stats, but they too quote TAT as the source. I think it'd be a privacy breach if the card companies gave detailed info to TAT. 

 

Hotels and restaurants - why would they bother reporting to TAT? Is there an incentive or regulation? 

 

Mom&pop and 7 & co- cash transactions are completely off stats. 

 

The point: Why bother publishing expenditure per nationality, when the dataset is either made up or from a very limited number of sources.

I understand there is a requirement of businesses in the sampling program to provide the requested data.

 

I'm pretty sure that Visa Thailand is able to communicate that information to TAT, most probably via the banks I imagine.

 

I think at some point a person has to ask whether they trust TAT to reliably gather data, a majority of the time, if the answer is no then that's an end to the debate, reliable data doesn't exist. A person also has to decide whether they believe sampling is a reliable way of gathering this information, if you do not, do not go any further because it's pointless. My position is that sampling is a good way of estimating these things but that TAT doesn't do a brilliant job of communicating its findings and that it probably get it wrong often.

 

 

[Snow Leopard]

On 10/30/2019 at 7:10 AM, Stocky said:

I don't know if their numbers are correct or not. Hat Yai is busy, but it runs on a different model to most of Thailand, it's weekend visitors from Malaysia and Singapore. Probably because Malaysians and Singaporeans are also feeling the pinch they're travelling closer to home this year.

 

What gets me is the conflicting reports, from the Tourism Ministry it's peachy, the Finance Ministry meanwhile says things are less rosy, whilst transport officials are suggesting cuts to airports, or not. Local authorities and hotelier groups say it's hard times. You're left not knowing who to believe.

 

It just leaves you sceptical, particularly of TAT, who seem to have Buzz Lightyear as resident statistician - "To infinity and beyond!"

100% correct. 

[xylophone]

On 10/30/2019 at 10:35 AM, khunpa said:

Now just wait until the Billions of invisible Indians start to arrive. Numbers will go crazy!

Today and yesterday I saw quite a few milling around and even caught an old Indian couple unwrapping the chocolates and sweet packets to have a look (possibly a taste?) in Big C.

 

I watched them for a while as they went from one packet/box to another, then said to them, "you are not supposed to unwrap them you know".........so they moved on. 

 

Quality tourists.........not a chance in hell.

[ExpatOilWorker]

4 hours ago, saengd said:

You probably won't find them all in one place, you'll likely have to cross reference several documents, here's a couple more for those who are interested:

 

https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/pdf/10.18111/9789284419876

 

http://statbbi.nso.go.th/staticreport/page/sector/en/17.aspx

 

http://www.atta.or.th/?p=4019

Cool stuff. Thanks for sharing.

Look how females from Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia have exploded in numbers. They now out travel their male counterpart.

Female empowerment in traditional Muslim countries. Good on them.

Tourist by gender.xlsx

[ExpatOilWorker]

The below sheet undermine TAT a bit. They use daily spendings (2018) as below:

 

Cambodia: 5,669 baht/day

Laos: 5,382 baht/day

Myanmar: 5,977 baht/day

 

Germany: 3,611 baht/day

Sweden: 4,640 baht/day

UK: 4,287 baht/day

 

Crazy Rich Asian all right.

 

 

Tourist Spending by Nationality.xlsx

[Thechook]

Tourism never declines in Thailands, it's alway smashing records and going up and up.  There is absolutely nothing  that effects tourism even if you were getting one satang to the dollar tourist would still be flocking and records smashed.

[Reigntax]

On 10/29/2019 at 7:07 PM, Creasy said:

These guys don't know if they're Arthur or Martha.

 

One day up. Next day down. One day broke. Next day spending billions.

 

It applies to most government departments in Thailand.

 

I can't keep up ????

Or one of the various gender hybrids between Martha and Arthur !!!!

[Moo 2]

Yes, we believe you, we are only expat, blind, ignorant and we believe what you tell us.

Keep talking, we love Thai jokes. 

[DrTuner]

17 hours ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

The below sheet undermine TAT a bit. They use daily spendings (2018) as below:

 

Cambodia: 5,669 baht/day

Laos: 5,382 baht/day

Myanmar: 5,977 baht/day

 

Germany: 3,611 baht/day

Sweden: 4,640 baht/day

UK: 4,287 baht/day

 

Crazy Rich Asian all right.

 

 

Tourist Spending by Nationality.xlsx 53.25 kB · 1 download

Every border crossing (TR, waivers, etc) that's recorded is a "tourist". Somehow I doubt the Laotian day workers spend 5,382 baht every day on their 400b/d income. Those figures must come from some source and then TAT uses a simple multiplier. Way, waaaaaaayy off.

Edited November 1, 2019 by DrTuner

[ExpatOilWorker]

3 hours ago, DrTuner said:

Every border crossing (TR, waivers, etc) that's recorded is a "tourist". Somehow I doubt the Laotian day workers spend 5,382 baht every day on their 400b/d income. Those figures must come from some source and then TAT uses a simple multiplier. Way, waaaaaaayy off.

The source is the one and same TAT: 

Source: Office of the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Tourism and Sports

[saengd]

3 hours ago, DrTuner said:

Every border crossing (TR, waivers, etc) that's recorded is a "tourist". Somehow I doubt the Laotian day workers spend 5,382 baht every day on their 400b/d income. Those figures must come from some source and then TAT uses a simple multiplier. Way, waaaaaaayy off.

You do understand how averages work!

[Shiver]

On 10/29/2019 at 3:04 PM, Sticky Wicket said:

Thailand’s informal economy, the non-regulated, non-taxed part of its overall economy, makes up about 40% of the country’s GDP also!!

It's pure unadulterated bullsh!t!

I suspect you were not informed that casual workers, ladies of the night and other non tax payers actually report their earnings for the statistics department ???? ???? (sorry, can't find the 'tongue in cheek' emoticon at the moment).

L, DL, & Stats?

[Traubert]

On 11/1/2019 at 10:38 AM, Moo 2 said:

Yes, we believe you, we are only expat, blind, ignorant and we believe what you tell us.

Keep talking, we love Thai jokes. 

Well one out of three aint bad as Meatloaf's first draft said.

[RocketDog]

Sure. And if birds had radios there would be music in the air.

[nursebob]

just goes to show, you can prove anything with statistics

[bkksteve123]

Would be very interesting to see how they actually gather the data and make these estimates.

 

The arrivals should be rather straight-forward, but to calculate the spend per tourist and total tourist $ is essentially impossible. It also seems a bit strange that spend per tourist is UP, when the baht is so strong. I could believe that arrivals are at same levels as before thanks to Chinese tourists, but that they are spending more than ever in THB seems unlikely.

[ExpatOilWorker]

2 hours ago, bkksteve123 said:

Would be very interesting to see how they actually gather the data and make these estimates.

 

The arrivals should be rather straight-forward, but to calculate the spend per tourist and total tourist $ is essentially impossible. It also seems a bit strange that spend per tourist is UP, when the baht is so strong. I could believe that arrivals are at same levels as before thanks to Chinese tourists, but that they are spending more than ever in THB seems unlikely.

 

Tourist Spending by Nationality.xlsx

[DrTuner]

On 11/1/2019 at 5:43 PM, ExpatOilWorker said:

The source is the one and same TAT: 

Source: Office of the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Tourism and Sports

Yeah, it always leads back there. Must be some small office room where they throw joss sticks on the floor to get the figures. 

 

I'm still searching for the raw data. 

[ExpatOilWorker]

On 11/1/2019 at 6:05 PM, saengd said:

You do understand how averages work!

I think we all understand the  purchasing power of the average Laotian and Myanmar "tourust" and it ain't 5,000 baht/day.

There is of course a thriving border trade across various friendship bridges. If this export is averaged out as tourist spendings for Laotian and Myanmars, then we should also throw in Thailand's $34 billion anual export to the US of A in when we tally the Yankee's tourist spendings.

 

[stoutfella]

That's really great news but eventually, if this rate of increase continues, the whole world will be coming to visit Thailand every year.