TAT forced to face reality: more than a third of the Thai tourist industry has gone bust

[jadee]

there is a good article in the BkPost about how Thailand tried to sell itself as a covid-free haven and no-one came. The only solution might be to drop the 14-day requirement but I don't think that's popular with anyone outside the tourist industry

[asiasurfer]

18 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

Very true. If a tourist wanted to venture to an island destination, they are all devastated by this shutdown. Was recently in Samui. 85% of the hotels were closed. Most restaurants, alot of bars, shops and other businesses were closed many permanently. Granted, there are some great hotel bargains right now. But, that environment is fairly depressing, seeing so much hardship. So, the lame authorities here need to wrap their minds around that. Tourists would be coming to a hugely diminished destination. Free quarantine? Might be a good place to start. Make some sacrifices, you incompetents. These issues and problems were becoming apparent long before Covid. And none were being addressed. That is part of my point. Tourism had been declining for years already. The numbers were up. But the quality of tourist was way down. And according to everyone I spoke to last year, the year before and the year before that, income was way, way down. So, "this blame it all on Covid scenario" is somewhat disengenuous. Sure, Covid is huge. And the drop now is stunning. But, my point is there were plenty of issues prior to Covid. And are any of them being addressed?

Major changes need to be made, if Thailand wants to continue to enjoy the cash cow of tourism. Travelers these days simply have too many choices. Creativity is required. Progress needs to be made. Thailand cannot continue to be one of the least progressive nations on earth, and expect foreigners to tolerate that degree of ignorance. These seeds were planted over a decade ago. The hapless army has accelerated the process dramatically. If Thailand had a qualified health minister, and a slightly intelligent tourism minister, they would stop this nonsense, and realize no tourism program requiring quarantine will ever work. Period. 

 

No sacrifices are being made or contemplated. No luxury or wine taxes are being reduced. Nothing is being done to address prior problems, or elevate the experience. Combined with a bloated baht, inconsistent and draconian immigration policy, major international egg on the face from recent decisions pertaining to the youth and opposition protestors, no way forward politically, horrendous air quality and environmental policies (or lack thereof), and a truly regressive dinosaur government, Thailand is losing its appeal for many. 
 
The Thai army. Moving Thailand backwards, and inflicting untold pain on it's people. Time to go, guys. The people need competency, and they are speaking loudly now. 

 

Exactly. All correct. 

 

Whereas I must confess that I'm not missing that large tourist crowd at all and that I believe some of those so called tourism business with all their filthy hotel rooms, scams, double pricing, etc., simply DO deserve to go under. It's actually not bad for some worthless business to finally disappear. 

 

However, I also have friends and family who were working in well established business for donkey years. Seing those people suffering hurts me. They had well established restaurants for over 30 years for example and are now faced with possible permanent closure. They receive no help at all and all they get is another bs "from above" on an almost daily basis. 

 

Thailand has become progressively paranoid over a little virus and this fear is well fed from the top for whatever reasons. I've had a friend who was working in a restaurant which was affected by Covid. The restaurant was subsequently closed and my friend had been tested negative twice since she left the restaurant. But even so, she became a stigmatized scapegoat in her home moban. The neighborhood all shunned her, too scared to even look at her. Then the head of the village told her to remain indoors because the whole moban was scared. It was totally unnecessary and overreacted. 

 

Now tell me Thailand is not paranoid... 

[Sheryl]

I somehow doubt anything or anyone can succeed in getting TAT to face reality.

 

 

[sweatalot]

1 hour ago, GeorgeCross said:

 

i assume he'll be doing the decent thing and stepping down?

 

lol

Do you believe his successor would be able to do better?

May be just not tell fairy tales - otherwise the same.

[crobe]

Latest local infections in Thailand today (Saturday 23rd) are 180 of which 163 were in Samut Sakhon, 9 in Bangkok and 5 in Samut Songkhram

That means only 3 in other provinces and I am guessing that Chonburi will be zero or one as it has been in the past 5 days.

The "red-zone" restrictions are not due to be reviewed until the end of the month, but with the inter-provincial travel ban in place is it not time to immediately open up local restaurants and shops for local people to use?  

It won't be much help but it may help a little

[Mavideol]

2 hours ago, rooster59 said:

The Tourism Authority of Thailand are having to face reality after one of their own surveys showed them their rose tinted view was a complete sham.

 

2 hours ago, rooster59 said:

This was greeted with incredulity in many areas.

TAT only has one option .... Push the Re-Start button and they better do it fast before it hits rock bottom. While re-starting they should work hand on hand with IMO and revise all their visa restrictions/requirements making it easy/appealing for people to come back, if they still hanging on the current/existing hurdles no re-starting button will save them

[herfiehandbag]

2 hours ago, soi3eddie said:

 

If a business had shut and gone out of business how were TAT able to contact them? What about all the other businesses that had dissapeared completely and weren't contactable? What about all the small bars, street vendors and massage shops? The TAT stated percentage of 34.66% must be way, way under the real figure.

 

I would say, off the top of my head, and therefore wildly inaccurate ( a bit like TAT really I suppose) at least 60%, probably more, of the businesses here in Chiang Rai which existed to serve foreign tourists have closed. I should imagine (again following TAT's methodology), that it must be worse in the major tourist destinations.

 

Of course, when (if) tourists start to trickle back then some may reopen, but in the meantime the absence of any support for those forced out of business or work must be (is) hurting.

 

It was perhaps inevitable, but made worse, far worse by a total lack of interest in the fate of the small businesses, which made up the bulk of the enterprises, and an obsession with restructuring the business to cater for the (largely non existent) "high spending", "well heeled", "quality" tourist market. The only light side is a certain amount of schadenfreude that those who invested so heavily with the governments STV scheme appear to have caught a cold as well.

[Odysseus123]

6 minutes ago, herfiehandbag said:

The only light side is a certain amount of schadenfreude

It is,most certainly,very difficult days for everyone..

[GeorgeCross]

1 hour ago, sweatalot said:

Do you believe his successor would be able to do better?

May be just not tell fairy tales - otherwise the same.

 

of course not. patronage systems do not allow the creme to rise, only the <deleted> to float.

 

 

[Smilermike]

Not only that . You have to now think of the retired foreigners living here. Many of which will return  to their origins or another country which are more motivated on attracting foreigners with more relaxed rules and prices.

[Thomas J]

[klauskunkel]

Let's say 10 million tourists do arrive this year. Where will they go? No hotels, no restaurants, no attractions. 

This is directly thanks to TAT who just had to inflate numbers and make rosy reports all year long, which then caused no aid forthcoming for tourism businesses. Vietnam thanks you, TAT.

Now, what kind of punishment should the TATsters receive? I know: another medal for the dress uniform.

[mr_lob]

3 hours ago, GeorgeCross said:

 

i assume he'll be doing the decent thing and stepping down?

 

lol

He should go into quarantine to rid himself of his brain fog

[sahibji]

I wonder how this will equate in terms of financial numbers. What a pity that the subsequent wave has hit Thailand much harder than the initial onset of the COVID 19

[mrmicbkktxl]

Didn't they say half of Finland will come

[Deli]

3 hours ago, YetAnother said:

so what was that optimistic outlook based on ? no facts, just baseless hope ?

 

Bad mushrooms

[Virt]

2 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Very true. If a tourist wanted to venture to an island destination, they are all devastated by this shutdown. Was recently in Samui. 85% of the hotels were closed. Most restaurants, alot of bars, shops and other businesses were closed many permanently. Granted, there are some great hotel bargains right now. But, that environment is fairly depressing, seeing so much hardship. So, the lame authorities here need to wrap their minds around that. Tourists would be coming to a hugely diminished destination. Free quarantine? Might be a good place to start. Make some sacrifices, you incompetents. These issues and problems were becoming apparent long before Covid. And none were being addressed. That is part of my point. Tourism had been declining for years already. The numbers were up. But the quality of tourist was way down. And according to everyone I spoke to last year, the year before and the year before that, income was way, way down. So, "this blame it all on Covid scenario" is somewhat disengenuous. Sure, Covid is huge. And the drop now is stunning. But, my point is there were plenty of issues prior to Covid. And are any of them being addressed?

Major changes need to be made, if Thailand wants to continue to enjoy the cash cow of tourism. Travelers these days simply have too many choices. Creativity is required. Progress needs to be made. Thailand cannot continue to be one of the least progressive nations on earth, and expect foreigners to tolerate that degree of ignorance. These seeds were planted over a decade ago. The hapless army has accelerated the process dramatically. If Thailand had a qualified health minister, and a slightly intelligent tourism minister, they would stop this nonsense, and realize no tourism program requiring quarantine will ever work. Period. 

 

No sacrifices are being made or contemplated. No luxury or wine taxes are being reduced. Nothing is being done to address prior problems, or elevate the experience. Combined with a bloated baht, inconsistent and draconian immigration policy, major international egg on the face from recent decisions pertaining to the youth and opposition protestors, no way forward politically, horrendous air quality and environmental policies (or lack thereof), and a truly regressive dinosaur government, Thailand is losing its appeal for many. 
 
The Thai army. Moving Thailand backwards, and inflicting untold pain on it's people. Time to go, guys. The people need competency, and they are speaking loudly now. 

 

 

Me and GF think of Samui as our second home and follows various vloggers living on the island. 

It's sad to see the situation down there, and we actually talked about that it will be a very different experience next time we visit Samui. 

Not sure it will be a positive experience, if we arrive on Samui only to find out many of our usual places are closed permanently or changes owners. 

 

I'm looking forward to go back to Samui, but I fear it's going to be a sad vacation if we also find out many of the Thais we gotten to know during the years are not there anymore. 

 

I imagine other people shares the same worries about returning to their favorite places in Thailand. 

 

[Timwin]

What COVID does not kill the new fancy smog season laced with burning plastic and rubber tires will kill the rest of tourist industry. The air quality is better in Los Angeles, New York, London and Berlin city centres than in Thailand!

[spidermike007]

1 minute ago, Virt said:

 

Me and GF think of Samui as our second home and follows various vloggers living on the island. 

It's sad to see the situation down there, and we actually talked about that it will be a very different experience next time we visit Samui. 

Not sure it will be a positive experience, if we arrive on Samui only to find out many of our usual places are closed permanently or changes owners. 

 

I'm looking forward to go back to Samui, but I fear it's going to be a sad vacation if we also find out many of the Thais we gotten to know during the years are not there anymore. 

 

I imagine other people shares the same worries about returning to their favorite places in Thailand. 

 

 

Having lived on Samui for nearly a decade, some years back (the golden years of Samui, perhaps), I too felt some of the same sentiments, on my recent visit. Very hard to see the locals suffering like this. Hundreds of hotels, restaurants, stores, galleries, pharmacies, opticians (Samui already had way too many!), massage shops, and other businesses have already closed permanently, and I am told that most which have "under renovation" signs on them, are closed for good too. Lamai and Chaweng are particularly hard hit. Bank Rak, Bhoput, and Maenam do not feel quite as devastated. It does feel a bit like visiting after some sort of apocalypse. 

 

There does not appear to be any end in sight for the Southern Islands. Domestic tourism has now been wrecked due to a very poor reaction by Anutin and the administration, with regard to the need for a total shutdown of Samut province, which happened far too late, after the latest outbreak. It was total and abysmal failure. Oh, can I go to prison for saying that? 

 

Prayuth is largely to blame for this, as he was obsessed with the optics of a lockdown, even if it was only one province. This has led to thousands of cases, the loss of millions more jobs, and an utter demolition of the domestic tourism industry. As far as international tourism goes, it is anyone's guess when that will start to revive, and how many years it will take to even get back to 20% of the former levels. I am guessing no more than 5 to 8 million tourists annually, even four or five years from now. 

 

 

[PETERTHEEATER]

3 hours ago, GeorgeCross said:

 

i assume he'll be doing the decent thing and stepping down?

 

lol

No stepping down, that's the cowards way out. Be a man, don the white formal uniform and fall on your ceremonial sword.

 

[Mr Meeseeks]

3 hours ago, GeorgeCross said:

its done. all going bust i'm afraid, the gov just aren't interested in bailing them out

 

 

Indeed and this was obvious from March/April last year. 

 

Congrats to those with enough foresight to have got out in time.

[Guderian]

With all the new variants of the virus emerging, and the response of many countries being to lock down harder and tighter and demand negative PCR tests and self-paid quarantine, I'm not convinced that mass tourism is going to resume this year, in spite of the vaccine programmes. Spain has already said that it will be closed to foreign tourists until September, in effect cancelling this year's summer holiday season.

[spidermike007]

2 hours ago, asiasurfer said:

Exactly. All correct. 

 

Whereas I must confess that I'm not missing that large tourist crowd at all and that I believe some of those so called tourism business with all their filthy hotel rooms, scams, double pricing, etc., simply DO deserve to go under. It's actually not bad for some worthless business to finally disappear. 

 

However, I also have friends and family who were working in well established business for donkey years. Seing those people suffering hurts me. They had well established restaurants for over 30 years for example and are now faced with possible permanent closure. They receive no help at all and all they get is another bs "from above" on an almost daily basis. 

 

Thailand has become progressively paranoid over a little virus and this fear is well fed from the top for whatever reasons. I've had a friend who was working in a restaurant which was affected by Covid. The restaurant was subsequently closed and my friend had been tested negative twice since she left the restaurant. But even so, she became a stigmatized scapegoat in her home moban. The neighborhood all shunned her, too scared to even look at her. Then the head of the village told her to remain indoors because the whole moban was scared. It was totally unnecessary and overreacted. 

 

Now tell me Thailand is not paranoid... 

 

This is true. Millions will remain out of work, possibly for years to come. And they are assuming when they finally do open up, the tourists will come flooding in. The old TCOKU (Thailand is the center of the known universe) mentality. Not so. The longer they wait, the harder it will be to get them back. And the one principal that is not setting in yet (I was hoping for some humility and learning from this utter collapse of tourism) is the fact that Thailand needs the world, at least 20x more, than the world needs Thailand. 

 

It appears Anutin, Pipat, Prayuth and the others are incapable of both humility and evolution (learning). Oh, can I be imprisoned for saying that? 

[Dialemco]

The reality is there is unlikely to be any international tourism until last quarter of 2021 earliest. Meanwhile it is time to restructure to a more greener/leaner  tourism giving good value for money. Extend the visa waiver to 60 days and encourage return to land of smiles and welcome like it used to be.

[spidermike007]

What will the future of tourism look like here? I am guessing 5 to 20 million annually, at most, during our lifetimes. If Thailand is fortunate. That means thousands of hotels will go under. Trillions of dollars in tourism infrastructure lost? It will have a minor effect on some very wealthy people. But, who will carry the burden of most of this? The common man. Tourism is not returning to Thailand anytime soon. If you think about it, the group that comprised perhaps 80% of all arrivals (lower to middle income Chinese, Malaysian and Indians) are the ones who have been hardest hit by this idiotic worldwide economic shutdown. Tourism in Thailand will never recover to even close to it's former levels, and that leaves millions out of work. Most countries will still be required to have Covid letters, as the virus is still raging in many countries. And some countries will not issue that letter (impossible to get in the US). Plus, will the mandatory health insurance still be required? Vaccinations? Will it be even stricter than before? And just what are people returning to, or coming to? Will restaurants be open? How about nightlife? Trillions of baht are going to be lost here. Annually. Tourism will NEVER fully recover. Not in our lifetimes. Too much timidity. Too much cowardice. Too little juice and creativity. Such small minds. Expect 300,000 tourists in the 12 months following the end of restrictions. 2 million the following year, and no more than 5 million tourists a year for several years after that. This is realistic. International tourism here will never be the same, post Covid. 

 

And apart from those who die of hunger due to the economy shutdown, hundreds of millions are driven into severe poverty, suicide, in Scandinavia cancer screening and other important things are beng postponed due to the corona, most likely resulting in a higher death rate for some diseases, people are losing their businesses, their homes, more divorces, more drinking, etc., etc., etc. - just so that the 96 old blind, deaf, and senile Olga can live 6 months longer. Those dying of starvation are mostly children with a long life ahead of them.
 

Will take some time to see how this all shakes out, but it is my opinion that the economic fallout from the inane economic shutdown, is going to be 200 times worse than Covid itself, and the recovery "ramp up" will be long and excruciating. Far longer than they say. It will not just bounce back. In the history of the world, as far as we know, there has never been a deliberate worldwide economic shutdown. It is light years beyond dumb. The "slowdown" will last well into 2021, for certain. And some industries may never come back, or will be a pale shadow of their former selves. No doubt homelessness will skyrocket in the US. Tourism in Thailand will never recover to even close to it's former levels, and that leaves millions out of work.

 

This is certainly the first time in history (first wave excluded) that most of the worlds economies were deliberately shut down. Even during all 51 of the major bubonic plagues, between 541AD In Europe and Western Asia, and the last one to happen in China in 1946, the Japanese smallpox plague of AD735, the Mexican smallpox plague of 1519, the massive influenza plague of 1616, which took an estimated 50% of more, of the local populations in Europe, and North America, the Russian cholera epidemic of 1846, the worldwide flu pandemic of 1889, and of course the infamous Spanish flu of 1918, which took out an estimated 20-100 million people, ports were locked down, and some isolation was done, but economies were never totally shut down. Makes one wonder what it truly going on. 

Looking into the future, one can only guess what it will look like. What about concerts? Will people be willing to hang out with crowds of 20,000, at a cost of hundreds of dollars for a crappy seat? Same with sports. Will people be willing to go into a stadium or an arena with 20,000 to 100,000 people close together, and pay crazy money for a seat? Movie theaters? Cruise ships? Will the hordes just start descending on restaurants again, and pay inane prices for a gourmet meal? The list goes on, and on and on.

 

And in the end, hundreds millions worldwide could end up far poorer than they were before. And tens of millions could end up starving to death, compared to perhaps 500,000 or so total deaths worldwide from Covid. OK. The rich stay safe and financially secure. And the rest of us? And those of us who are self employed, without fortunes in the bank?

There are so many unanswered questions, it boggles the mind. One thing is for certain. Thailand will be feeling the effects of this for a very, very long time. So will the rest of the world.

[Cake Monster]

Whilst many will be crying into their Beer over the demise of the Thai  Tourist  Industry, I personally think  its no bad thing.

The Tourism Industry in Thailand was a Monster out of control, with little or no regulation, and was rife with all kinds of Scams and dare I say corruption.

Now is the perfect time to have a reset on the Industry and bring it back with a World standard in Customer care and Value for Money.

But ! , unfortunately this is Thailand, and when the Tourists return, so will the all the poor quality Business,s that service them, when really they should never be allowed to Operate in the sector.

 

[spidermike007]

19 minutes ago, PETERTHEEATER said:

No stepping down, that's the cowards way out. Be a man, don the white formal uniform and fall on your ceremonial sword.

 

 

At the risk of repeating myself, I said exactly that recently. He and his utterly hapless and stunningly incompetent army have failed us once again, and he needs to admit the failure, apologize to the nation, and fall on his sword, metaphorically, by handing in his resignation, in utter humiliation. 
 
A speech to the nation. "I am so sorry. I could have stopped this from happening. Same goes for my health minister. We are both handing in our resignation, starting tomorrow. We really dropped the ball, and failed. It is the right thing to do. I now realize both myself and Anutin have been way over our heads, this entire time. We take responsibility. Forgive us, if u can, but we will never forgive ourselves for failing you, the people of Thailand. 

This all happened due to sheer stupidity and stunning greed. Thailand is really going into a world of hurt now. Tourism will not recover for years and domestic tourism just died. Millions of jobs lost. Samut Sakorn should have been locked down like the San Quentin, the same day this outbreak happened. Sure, the precious seafood industry would have been affected, but millions of jobs would have been saved, and the domestic tourism industry along with that. We all would have been happy to eat chicken for a few weeks! 

[Percy P]

3 hours ago, redwood1 said:

When 7-11s, Burger Kings, and Starbucks are closing down all over the place, the situation is not just bad its desperate and getting worse all the time.....Only removing all restrictions for tourist 100% could turn things around....

That can't be done. Restrictions are necessary to keep the Virus at bay. I'm  a tourist and quite content in having to adhere to government restrictions. How many cases  were found of people in quarantine.

[WineOh]

4 hours ago, rooster59 said:

A TAT survey between January 10 and 12 asked 1,884 businesses how they were getting along. 

That's nice of them.

of course no offer of any financial help, which is what these people really need.

 

Kind of similar to the job centre phoning you up when you have just been laid off, asking how things are going but then abruptly hanging up on you ???? 

[SomchaiCNX]

12 minutes ago, Cake Monster said:

Whilst many will be crying into their Beer over the demise of the Thai  Tourist  Industry, I personally think  its no bad thing.

The Tourism Industry in Thailand was a Monster out of control, with little or no regulation, and was rife with all kinds of Scams and dare I say corruption.

Now is the perfect time to have a reset on the Industry and bring it back with a World standard in Customer care and Value for Money.

But ! , unfortunately this is Thailand, and when the Tourists return, so will the all the poor quality Business,s that service them, when really they should never be allowed to Operate in the sector.

 

I'm in the tourist business so to say but I hate 95% of what was going on in tourism. Unfortunately us 5 % will suffer as well as long as they don't allow the people in. I was lucky (smart) enough to build up a reserve for scenarios like this. Hopefully we can survive but I'm sure those bad apples closed down (to  save money) immediately and will pop up again as soon as they can when it is over and will start all over again. After the tsunami they has the chance to rebuild it the proper way but...........