Foreign tourist arrivals in Thailand fall to decade low

[Sydebolle]

Decade, did I read decade? I would assume "many decades" if not a century ....... don't expect this country to be overrun once the boys decide to open the borders again. 

Many of those dirty farangs meanwhile found out, that other places are welcoming them at least as friendly and competitive and Sri Lanka, Seychelles and the Caribbean are recording nice revenues and profits from those being shunned away from Thailand - some for good! 

[Artisi]

2 hours ago, Poet said:

No idea what you mean. Would you care to elaborate?

Seems a couple of others understood, so will leave it to yourself to work it out. 

[Poet]

14 minutes ago, Artisi said:

Seems a couple of others understood, so will leave it to yourself to work it out. 

Getting two likes is hardly a resounding achievement. As I said, many on this forum have a deep-seated desire to see the Thai economy punished. They may have valid reasons for that, but reality does not care about the chip on their shoulders.

I laid out my reasoning. If you cannot be bothered to lay out yours it is obvious that you are merely operating from the same gut-level wish to see Thailand suffer. I'm more interested in understanding what is actually happening.


 

Edited February 2, 2021 by Poet

[ChakaKhan]

As per the pic in the OP, I sure do miss seeing those chinese cuties in the hats-sundresses and sneakers! 555

 

Wandering around with a big of snail white, durian, and seaweed chips, invading the 7-11 on nimman and chatting up others on wechat in search of the mango guy selfie

 

But alas im sure the red trucks and tuk tuk guys miss them even more!   better be packing heat Grab taxi boys!  ????

[ChakaKhan]

12 minutes ago, Artisi said:

leave it to yourself to work it out.

reminiscing about the happy massage days! ????

[Cake Monster]

5 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

 

It's ok. Foreign tourism makes up only a small 9% of Thai GDP. ????

 

I thought that Foreign Tourism was around 13% of GDP and that there was 6% of Thai Local Tourism, which makes up the total of 19% of GDP total on the Tourism Sector.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

[bermondburi]

2 hours ago, Poet said:

It was explained, right there, in the same comment you quoted from:
 

Mass tourism is not returning for any country with a quarantine. We are talking about the second half of the year when Thailand will have followed the lead of the Seychelles and other tourism-dependent countries and dropped the quarintine in favor of a vaccination requirement.
 

The major airlines have made it clear that, once a sufficient number of people are vaccinated, they will no longer carry any unvaccinated passengers.
 

 

Tourism will be back, at full capacity, shortly after vaccines reach general availability in advanced countries in April or May (meaning anyone who wants a vaccine can get one).

A record number of people want to visit Thailand, a record number of people now have the money to do so. The Thai government, under pressure from the Thai elites who own Thailand, are anxious to get their tourism industry rolling again. They are not going to wait any longer than they absolutely have to. By this summer they will have vaccinated their own most vulnerable and will be open for business again, and the population will be satisfied that requiring all visitors to be vaccinated is good enough.

This isn't rocket science. Remember, always in Thailand, Money Number One.

 

Just because you say it's so, doesn't necessarily make it so.... 

[Poet]

Just now, bermondburi said:

Just because you say it's so, doesn't necessarily make it so.... 

Welcome to the wonderful world of discourse, where people state what they believe and engage in discussion with others.
 

[ThailandRyan]

1 minute ago, Poet said:

Welcome to the wonderful world of discourse, where people state what they believe and engage in discussion with others.
 

You must think this forum is a democracy.  Read into that what you will.

[bermondburi]

4 minutes ago, Poet said:

Welcome to the wonderful world of discourse, where people state what they believe and engage in discussion with others.
 

Believe being the key word there. 

[Artisi]

49 minutes ago, Poet said:

Getting two likes is hardly a resounding achievement. As I said, many on this forum have a deep-seated desire to see the Thai economy punished. They may have valid reasons for that, but reality does not care about the chip on their shoulders.

I laid out my reasoning. If you cannot be bothered to lay out yours it is obvious that you are merely operating from the same gut-level wish to see Thailand suffer. I'm more interested in understanding what is actually happening.


 

A few home-spun assumptions contained within that, but that seems to be fairly normal. 

[Darksidedude]

its been declining pre covid mainly because of the thai baht, its expensive to go on a holiday in thailand

[Poet]

1 minute ago, Artisi said:

A few home-spun assumptions contained within that, but that seems to be fairly normal. 

Another lazy, irrelavant, one-sentence squirt, adding zero to the actual discussion.

It is, somehow, depressing to realize that a human has devoted a significant portion of his limited life - 15,602 posts! - to saying so little. You could be replaced by a few dozen lines of code. 

 

[kingdong]

2 hours ago, Poet said:

That is surely a matter for the dozens of major corporations, including IBM, who are currently creating them. All we need to know is that we will have a way, confirmable online, to verify that we have been vaccinated.

 

Members of this forum keep bringing these points as if they matter. All the governments of the world are waiting for is a credible narrative for returning to normal economic activity. There is zero question of continuing on as we have been. The vaccines were always going to be their escape hatch, even if the effectiveness had been 50%. We just happen to have been lucky that they are generally around 90%.

Technically, all the governments need is sufficient immunity to slow down the R0 and to protect enough to the most vulnerable to take the sting out of the news reports.

The reason why we don't yet officially know if the vaccine will also slow down transmission is because that was not the focus of the testing phases required to receive authorization. Practically every medical expert involved agrees that it is almost certain that transmission will be reduced. The closest thing we have to post-vaccinations studies, the early results from Israel's closely monitored programme, suggest that yes, transmission is massively reduced.

All the members running around this forum, chanting the mantra that the vaccinated can still be spreaders, have no grasp of the biological mechanisms of transmission.
 

 

All the vaccines will be accepted as "good enough" because what is the alternative? If you want Chinese or Russian tourists, you must accepts the legitimacy of Chinese and Russian vaccines.

Whatever certification system is adopted will be trusted in the same way that passportare. Checking each cert online will be as simple as scanning a barcode.

 

 

No, that simply does not reflect reality. Every couple I know has socked away the money for a decent vaccination, mainly as a shared dream to prevent their marriages falling apart during the lockdown. The mental toll of 2020 was huge and travel, as soon as possible, is a priority for most people.

People have money. Most people have continued earning while spending very little. Online businesses have boomed. Property price, stocks, and crypto have all done well. The parts of society that have been adversely affected, such as low-skilled workers with few assets, do not travel much anyway.

 

People have money,yeah some do, others don,t,and if you have saved money you,re not going to spunk it up the wall on a holiday if you,ve lost your job or your job looks shaky,the knock on effect.of this pandemic are going to be extremely far reaching,also there's the pucker factor,a lot of people initially will be too scared to fly,then lets not forget our final destination THE Land Of Lost dreams,e" "experts " say it,ll take a vaccination rate of 70-80% to contain ( not eradicate ) corona how long do you think it will take thailand to achieve this? I feel all anyone can do in these difficult times is hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

[Suua]

2 hours ago, Poet said:

No, that simply does not reflect reality.

You're wrong,.....I've been haemorrhaging money for the past year, and I will be haemorrhaging more money this year too.

I know of countless people who have no income and most certainly won't be travelling as you naively predict.

[JonnyF]

2 hours ago, Poet said:

The parts of society that have been adversely affected, such as low-skilled workers with few assets, do not travel much anyway.

I'd say there are plenty of low skilled workers that holiday in Thailand. 

 

Thailand doesn't exactly attract the cream of the crop. An afternoon spent in the bars of Pattaya would confirm that there are plenty of low skilled workers and generally consists of working class people. Similarly, many of the family based tourists I see dragging their kids around Bangkok are not generally from the higher echelons of Western society, those types tend to go places like Dubai and Caribbean islands. Thailand made it's tourist industry on being cheap and fun (a bit of a free for all). The demographic that it attracts supports that. 

 

I doubt you'll find too many brain surgeons in the Chinese flag following, prawn quaffing groups either. 

[AlfHuy]

No ploplem.

Who care about the first qauarter.

By 31/12/21, the new record number of 156,387.544 tourist will have visited Highland and another 1 Billion Ch.... are sitting on packed luggages.

[Artisi]

19 minutes ago, Poet said:

Another lazy, irrelavant, one-sentence squirt, adding zero to the actual discussion.

It is, somehow, depressing to realize that a human has devoted a significant portion of his limited life - 15,602 posts! - to saying so little. You could be replaced by a few dozen lines of code. 

 

At least I don't rabbit on and on ad infinitum, and would suggest if your diatribe was edited for actual content, it could be replaced with 1 line of code. And as you don't really have anything to say that hasn't already been beaten to death the ignore button is looking very attractive. 

[Poet]

5 minutes ago, JonnyF said:

I'd say there are plenty of low skilled workers that holiday in Thailand.

There's plenty of everyone in Thailand, it is a massively popular destination. My point is that a higher income allows one to take more expensive vacations more often. For example, a taxi driver is more skilled and, therefore, earns more money than an office cleaner. Both the taxi driver and the office cleaner may want to visit Thailand, but the taxi driver will be able to afford to do so more often.

 

8 minutes ago, JonnyF said:

Thailand doesn't exactly attract the cream of the crop.

You and I probably frequent different hotels ????

 

[mickyr55]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Foreign tourist arrivals in Thailand fall to decade low

By Megha Paul

 

 

Foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs) into Thailand plunged to the lowest level in at least 12 years after the country closed its borders to contain the coronavirus outbreak, with resurgence in infections now undermining efforts to reopen the industry.

 

Tourist arrivals slumped to 6.7 million in 2020 from 39.9 million a year earlier, data from the Ministry of Tourism and Sports showed. This is the lowest number of visitors since at least 2008, according to the ministry data. Arrivals in December totalled 6,556, compared with 3.95 million during the same period a year earlier.

 

A new wave of Covid-19 infections and mandatory two-week quarantine are discouraging visitors, threatening a recovery in Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy that’s already devastated by the pandemic hit to its exports and tourism earnings. Even though the country reopened its borders to some visitors in October, only 10,822 tourists arrived in the final quarter, and a return to pre-pandemic levels is likely only in 2024, according to Knight Frank Thailand.

 

Full story: https://www.traveldailymedia.com/foreign-tourist-arrivals-in-thailand-fall-to-decade-low/

 

 

-- © Copyright Travel Daily 2021-02-02

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

- Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking COVID-19 updates

The Borders are closed to tourists, the Airports are closed to tourists, surprise, surprise tourists at an all-time low.

What's this a quiet news day??

[Poet]

16 minutes ago, Suua said:

You're wrong,.....I've been haemorrhaging money for the past year, and I will be haemorrhaging more money this year too.

I know of countless people who have no income and most certainly won't be travelling as you naively predict.

I sympathize, but you are just one person. That you know others in the same situation might simply mean that you fraternize with others unable to pick up new skills when necessary.

There will always be people who fail to adapt and, yes, that might mean they can no longer participate in certain activities, but there will always be others to replace them. That's just life.

 

[JonnyF]

4 minutes ago, Poet said:

You and I probably frequent different hotels ????

I would certainly hope so.

 

I wouldn't really consider a taxi driver a skilled occupation but then I guess it depends where you're coming from. If you clean toilets for a living you might consider it skilled. I'd call it semi skilled. But still an excellent example of the type of self employed, low skilled individual that might come to Thailand for a holiday and would have been hit hard during COVID, so thanks for reinforcing my point.????

[sixlegs]

6 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

 

It's ok. Foreign tourism makes up only a small 9% of Thai GDP. ????

 

Sometimes you just gotta be amazed by the amount of emptyheadness that some represents here.

 

Do you think that the whatever percentage of the direct income tourism represents are functioning in vacuum?

[Poet]

2 minutes ago, JonnyF said:

I would certainly hope so.

 

I wouldn't really consider a taxi driver a skilled occupation but then I guess it depends where you're coming from. If you clean toilets for a living you might consider it skilled. I'd call it semi skilled. But still an excellent example of the type of self employed, low skilled individual that might come to Thailand for a holiday and would have been hit hard during COVID, so thanks for reinforcing my point.????

Well, I chose taxi driver to illustrate that, when I say skilled, I don't mean lawyers or programmers. As it happens, taxi drivers have done well during the pandemic, despite the nature of their work changing. This is what I'm saying, almost no one who wants to work has been impactedly as badly as we feared. Some may have had to switch roles, but the demand has remained strong, and people working online have experienced an astonishing boom.

Around the start of the lockdown, I helped a fairly average guy source the right courses so that he could spend six weeks learning how to code and he spent the rest of the year making decent money. The situation is not as bleak as some people make it out to be.

 

[Zikomat]

My personal prediction: 2-3 million tourists in the year 2025. No mass tourism until then. 

[Ventenio]

7 hours ago, webfact said:

only 10,822 tourists arrived in the final quarter,

 

this might be a 50-year low for all i know.

 

it could even be 100-year low

 

decade low?   well, d'uh

[Golden Triangle]

5 hours ago, Poet said:

No idea what you mean. Would you care to elaborate?

Yes, it means ( as usual, you are spouting rubbish ) tourism at full whack later this year!!! Can I have some of whatever you're smoking/snorting/ drinking.

[Poet]

8 hours ago, Golden Triangle said:

tourism at full whack later this year!!! Can I have some of whatever you're smoking/snorting/ drinking.

<removed>

Perhaps, some day, a mental giant will emerge in this thread who can explain how the mass tourism doesn't kick in later this year once everyone in the first world who wants to be vaccinated is, once people get to travel safely for the first time in over a year, and once Thailand drops its onerous quarantine and testing requirements.

Again, 90% of the posters here on ThaiVisa are operating from a deep-seated desire to see Thailand explode. What has actually happened is that an important (but not vital) industry paused for a year. Millions of workers, most low-wage, returned to their villages. The hotels and airports remained standing. A few elite families had to stop inhaling money for a year but are unlikely to run out of food.

It all starts up again once the government can plausibly claim that the most vulnerable have been vacinated, allowing them to welcome the filthy foreigners back in. Vaccinated filthy foreigners. They will point to the fact that every other country has adopted the same approach. Other major destinations have ALREADY started. By the summer they will all be scrambling to get their slice of the biggest tourism boom in decades as pent-up demand kicks in. The hotels will be unlocked and dusted. The workers will board buses and return from the provinces. Everyone will continue on as before.
 

[Golden Triangle]

8 minutes ago, Poet said:

Again, no reasoning to back your conclusions, just insults. To be fair, you are the one whose username is a narcotics reference.

Perhaps, some day, a mental giant will emerge in this thread who can explain how the mass tourism doesn't kick in later this year once everyone in the first world who wants to be vaccinated is, once people get to travel safely for the first time in over a year, and once Thailand drops its onerous quarantine and testing requirements.
 

 

I have just set a reminder on my phone for the last week of October this year to gauge just how well the 10 million tourists are doing on the run up to the new high season, I sincerely hope you like humble pie.

[bwpage3]

14 hours ago, Poet said:

Just to be clear, Knight Frank is an Indian-owned real estate company who have learnt how to issue clueless press releases to gain mentions in clueless articles.

It is pretty obvious that Thai tourism will snap back to full capacity for the second half of this year if, as expected, they swap the quarantine and testing requirements for a vaccination requirement.

There is huge pent up demand for escape and, after a year of no going out, many people have vacation money burning a hole in their pockets. They will be able to afford more exotic vacations than usual and Thailand is going to be one of the main beneficiaries.

Most advanced countries should reach general availability of vaccination, for all those who actually want it, by April or May. The current spats are about getting the first few million shots to the most vulnerable, and the EU messed up badly by wasting three months negotiating a few euros discount on each shot (I have no idea what they were thinking).

We are, however, going to see the supply increase significantly as more vaccines come online, including the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccination, and as the production capacity for the already authorized vaccines is ramped up. The US has already vaccinated 32m, China 25m, and the UK 10m. Even less advanced countries, such as France or Russia, have managed to get over a million done. The next few months will be grim but April will be a very different story. Those eager to travel should be easily able to arrange vaccination in time for the summer, and the airlines will eager to reinstate their capacity as that demand emerges.

In short, Thailand will have a record high season this year.

 

Working in Commercial Aviation for 35+ years, in a recent meeting with Airbus, they are predicting air travel will not return to normal levels until Q4 2023.

 

The fortune 50 company I work for, just laid of a bunch of folks last week who had been with the company 25+ years. This is the fourth round of layoffs since covid started.

 

US Aviation is hammered by layoffs, early outs and most of the industry working on reduced salaries.

 

Tons of planes parked in the desert.

 

Boeing predicting the same.

 

Reports in the US of people with vaccines are still testing positive for covid, even after the second dose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 2, 2021 by bwpage3