Thailand feels the pinch of lower tourism earnings as second ex-minister queries economic data

[geisha]

On 10/26/2022 at 8:56 AM, MaiChai said:

I believe Thailand needs a reality check; the majority of foreigners come here for the cheap easy living in a warm climate and not to stay in 5 star hotels for 2 weeks. Longer term visas would boost tourism, although the income maybe be less but at least it is foreign income.

Agree , Thailand was known for being a cheap and friendly holiday in the sunshine. It’s definitely not been cheap for a few years now, and since Covid, inflation, Ukraine war , etc  hit this spring , potential tourists are staying close to home., Don’t forget , Spain, Italy France , Greece etc have great weather and good infrastructure with easy transport, car, bus, train plane. And these countries were packed to the rafters this summer. Not forgetting places like Morocco and Tunisia where you can holiday package for really cheap rates ,  if that floats your boat.

For Thailand to attract the wealthier tourists, they’ll have to take another look at their infrastructure !!

Non existant or  dangerous pavements, pestilential drains, ramshackle third world beach towns ( eg. Phuket is falling down all over the place due to business closures). The poor Thais living hand to mouth and reduced to begging . Great publicity for the country.  
As someone said above, the government had 2 years to clean up the place and help their people.

 They totally  ignored this. Reap what you sow !!!!!!!

[CygnusX1]

2 hours ago, geisha said:

Nothing to do with masks . You must be one of very few that give up their chosen destination because    many of  their citizens wear masks !! 

We’ll see, I wonder how tourist arrivals in Europe are going to compare with Asia in the next year. A member of my family who’s just returned from Rome described the city as jam packed with tourists, which doesn’t seem to match descriptions of Pattaya that I’ve been reading about on this forum.