'This island will be in trouble': Tourism workers brace for £37bn blow to Thailand's travel economy

Despite a domestic tourism bonanza, the Kingdom’s borders remain shut to international travellers – and the outlook is bleak for businesses

By Jack Taylor

 

The small island of Koh Samet is eagerly welcoming domestic visitors following a three-month shutdown which has devastated the Kingdom’s tourism industry CREDIT: Jack Taylor

 

The Thai island of Koh Samet, surrounded by sparkling clear waters and host to an abundance of seafood restaurants, has fully booked hotels for the first time in months.

 

Ferries packed with Thai nationals, each wearing face masks, arrive on the hour throughout the day. National Park rangers in camouflage overalls and matching facial coverings look on as long queues of travellers wait to have their temperatures scanned.

 

This small island is now eagerly welcoming domestic visitors following a three-month shutdown which has devastated the Kingdom’s tourism industry.

 

Full story: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/island-will-trouble-tourism-workers-brace-37bn-loss-thailands/

 

-- The Telegraph 2020-07-31

Story make no sense.

 

Aren't all these Thai traveler's spending money?

 

Fully booked hotels how is there such a loss?

3 hours ago, bwpage3 said:

Story make no sense.

 

Aren't all these Thai traveler's spending money?

 

Fully booked hotels how is there such a loss?

Well, you see, these islands used to milk the foreigners for all they got which is something they can't do to the locals.

 

From that photo, the beach and sea look absolutely filthy.

4 hours ago, bwpage3 said:

Story make no sense.

 

Aren't all these Thai traveler's spending money?

 

Fully booked hotels how is there such a loss?

 

Think about it. Thai travellers travel on public holidays and weekends. International travellers at any time and for much longer. Not one or two day stays with five people to a bungalow.

5 hours ago, bwpage3 said:

Story make no sense.

Aren't all these Thai traveler's spending money?

Fully booked hotels how is there such a loss?

Foreigners pay 10x more, park entrance fee for Thai as they get off the boat, 40bht, foreigner charge 400bht.

(it may have been 20bht and 200bht)

 

All the hotels and restaurants, same game.

2 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Foreigners pay 10x more, park entrance fee for Thai as they get off the boat, 40bht, foreigner charge 400bht.

All the hotels and restaurants, same game.

 

400?? Used to be 200 baht and that was a rip-off. If 400, I will not again step on the island.

With no international tourists, it's dead quiet at ALL tourist destinations in Thailand during the week.

Now how can businesses survive if they get only 30 percent of their usual turnover...

5 hours ago, bwpage3 said:

Story make no sense.

 

Aren't all these Thai traveler's spending money?

 

Fully booked hotels how is there such a loss?

Not the best journalism. The Thai travellers came in droves over the long weekend (although it was not full according to Agoda). But during the week and regular weekends, I doubt they will be full. No speedboats arriving with Russians and Chinese from Pattaya either.

7 minutes ago, Katipo said:

Not the best journalism. The Thai travellers came in droves over the long weekend (although it was not full according to Agoda). But during the week and regular weekends, I doubt they will be full. No speedboats arriving with Russians and Chinese from Pattaya either.

I went to Koh Samet in 2009.

During the week no tourists at all overnight, at weekends full of Thais from Bangkok for the weekend.

In the resort I stayed, just me and my hired help.

 

PS.

Couldn't sit on the beach, infested with bitey sandflies.

Photo taken on the main beach on a weekday afternoon in 2009.

5 hours ago, webfact said:

travellers wait to have their temperatures scanned.

 

Why?

It`s still 200 Baht for foreigners. Been there 2 weeks ago. Still, now they collect the money directly at the pier and not like they used to do at the national park gate. Before, if you booked a hotel around the pier (<deleted>ty area anyway), there was no national park fee.

 

Even though is fully booked during the weekends(2 weeks ago they told me that they just are allowed to sell 50% of the rooms due to social distancing), the island is DEAD during the week. I`ve seen instagram videos on Mondays or Tuesdays, where they had 2 tables occupied at the Ploy Talay Restaurant (the most famous one at the main beach) in the evenings.

 

In the past Samet got more and more popular with the Chinese, who prefer to stay around BKK and not fly to Phuket.

 

We stayed at one of the better resorts on the island and on both weekend days they ran out of Bacon/milk and cereals around 9 am. I think that says everything about the actual situations.

5 hours ago, webfact said:

'This island will be in trouble': Tourism workers brace for £37bn blow to Thailand's travel economy

7,800,000,000 people in the world, 670,000 ish have died from covid - so, 99.9992% are now living with 20-30% of total economic destruction of the planet for 0.0008 of the world population that died, whilst growing the earth population 40,000,000 more than covid deaths at the same time. Let that sink in !

 

Just get on with life, this is complete bull toilet now.

 

Open the planet, wear a mask and get on with it. 

 

5 minutes ago, Eindhoven said:

Think about it. Thai travellers travel on public holidays and weekends.

This is the part that I don't get, hotels were in lockdown for months, losing a lot of money, and when they reopened, not so long after, a long weekend was coming up, so what did a few of them do, lift their accommodation rates by as much as 85%.

 

I say this because when we looked at staying at one of the hotels we usually stay at, i.e. for the past long weekend, we saw that the room rates were up by 85%, suffice to say we decided it was of no benefit for us go, so we stayed home that long weekend that passed, don't get me wrong, we could afford the extra 85%, but why throw that extra money away when it could go towards other things if in fact we did get the rooms for the normal rates, others would have benefited, e.g. restaurants, and other shops desperate to make money once again after the lock down, the economy would benefit right, isn't that what it's all about. Well their hotel, their call, from where I am sitting we did not contribute one baht to the Thai economy, during that period, and no pompem. 

 

But to think that they had just reopened and wanted to take advantage by lifting prices up 85% when international travellers aren't even entering the country, just hoping to get the 85% increase off their fellow Thai's, well I wish them every success with their game plan, however I am of the opinion it's going to hurt over the long run.  

44 minutes ago, anchadian said:

From that photo, the beach and sea look absolutely filthy.

Really? I can't see any filth. 

8 minutes ago, 4MyEgo said:

This is the part that I don't get, hotels were in lockdown for months, losing a lot of money, and when they reopened, not so long after, a long weekend was coming up, so what did a few of them do, lift their accommodation rates by as much as 85%.

 

I say this because when we looked at staying at one of the hotels we usually stay at, i.e. for the past long weekend, we saw that the room rates were up by 85%, suffice to say we decided it was of no benefit for us go, so we stayed home that long weekend that passed, don't get me wrong, we could afford the extra 85%, but why throw that extra money away when it could go towards other things if in fact we did get the rooms for the normal rates, others would have benefited, e.g. restaurants, and other shops desperate to make money once again after the lock down, the economy would benefit right, isn't that what it's all about. Well their hotel, their call, from where I am sitting we did not contribute one baht to the Thai economy, during that period, and no pompem. 

 

But to think that they had just reopened and wanted to take advantage by lifting prices up 85% when international travellers aren't even entering the country, just hoping to get the 85% increase off their fellow Thai's, well I wish them every success with their game plan, however I am of the opinion it's going to hurt over the long run.  

You don't know that they increased by 85% for everyone? The way online booking works they could  have put the prices up for their last available spaces, just like airlines do. 

1 minute ago, RickG16 said:

You don't know that they increased by 85% for everyone? The way online booking works they could  have put the prices up for their last available spaces, just like airlines do. 

According to Booking.com they had 7 rooms of each we were looking to book, so not last rooms at all, on top of that, other sites would also have rooms available for the hotel.

Just now, 4MyEgo said:

other sites would also have rooms available for the hotel.

I don't think the 7 rooms are just for that site... that's probably the same count across all the sites you can book on. And if it's a big hotel 7 rooms  left isn't many? 

 

Where was it out of interest? 

I was just in Pattaya.  It was packed... over the holiday.  Then everyone went home and it was pretty much a ghost town.

 

Must be 50% of businesses boarded up.

 

A full 20% of Thai GDP is tourist based with about 50 million tourists per year.  The hoards of BKK Thais on 3-day weekends is not going to make that up.

BTW I stayed in Hard Rock Hotel with full breakfast for roughly 40% of normal rates.

11 minutes ago, 4MyEgo said:

According to Booking.com they had 7 rooms of each we were looking to book, so not last rooms at all, on top of that, other sites would also have rooms available for the hotel.

Booking.com (and Agoda etc) use algorithms to adjust the prices. The fact that people make searches and look at a specific hotel and/or a destination will impact the prices, not just the availability. And the changes from previous availability will have a large impact. If the hotel had zero bookings for three weeks and then suddenly they get five bookings for one weekend the price will go up, even if they have 25 available rooms. If there are no takers, the prices will drop. 

16 minutes ago, RickG16 said:

I don't think the 7 rooms are just for that site... that's probably the same count across all the sites you can book on. And if it's a big hotel 7 rooms  left isn't many? 

 

Where was it out of interest? 

iBis Hua Hin

13 minutes ago, GoDucks said:

I was just in Pattaya.  It was packed... over the holiday.  Then everyone went home and it was pretty much a ghost town.

 

Must be 50% of businesses boarded up.

 

A full 20% of Thai GDP is tourist based with about 50 million tourists per year.  The hoards of BKK Thais on 3-day weekends is not going to make that up.

I keep hearing and reading that 20% of Thai GDP is from tourism. But that's in bahts and satangs. I wonder how many people are actually impacted by the drop in tourism. I suspect it's a lot more than 20% of the population. 

6 minutes ago, androokery said:

Booking.com (and Agoda etc) use algorithms to adjust the prices. The fact that people make searches and look at a specific hotel and/or a destination will impact the prices, not just the availability. And the changes from previous availability will have a large impact. If the hotel had zero bookings for three weeks and then suddenly they get five bookings for one weekend the price will go up, even if they have 25 available rooms. If there are no takers, the prices will drop. 

This is basically a better and more detailed version of what I was trying to explain ????

48 minutes ago, Eindhoven said:

400?? Used to be 200 baht and that was a rip-off. If 400, I will not again step on the island.

 

Last week Thai 40, Foreigners 200. Too much if you visit for only some hours.

 

6 minutes ago, androokery said:

Booking.com (and Agoda etc) use algorithms to adjust the prices. The fact that people make searches and look at a specific hotel and/or a destination will impact the prices, not just the availability. And the changes from previous availability will have a large impact. If the hotel had zero bookings for three weeks and then suddenly they get five bookings for one weekend the price will go up, even if they have 25 available rooms. If there are no takers, the prices will drop. 

That makes sense as the same brand hotel we recently stayed in prior to the long weekend in BKK didn't put their rates up at all, so I suppose Hua Hin had a lot more tourists than BKK for that long weekend.

1 minute ago, dimitriv said:

Last week Thai 40, Foreigners 200. Too much if you visit for only some hours.

I have not gone to any place or event that charges more than a Thai and it will remain that way, until it changes.

29 minutes ago, RickG16 said:

Really? I can't see any filth. 

There's  a policeman hiding behind the rock on the right.

2 minutes ago, 4MyEgo said:

I have not gone to any place or event that charges more than a Thai and it will remain that way, until it changes.

 

There is not much you can do if you arrive by boat with your family and can choose between paying 200 Baht or going back with the same boat.

 

 

34 minutes ago, RickG16 said:

Really? I can't see any filth. 

There's a policeman hiding behind the rock on the right.