Thailand's Tourism Surge Threatened by Zero-Dollar Chinese Tours

[Wrwest]

2 hours ago, itsari said:

Investigate where the Chinese are staying and where they are taken to shop .

Look into the bank accounts of the hotels and shops they are using .

It seems as though the local Thai businesses understand what is happening but the authorities prefer not to know.

 

 

There you go ... using western logic. Don't get me wrong, I agree.

[ignore it]

" ...their goal is to boost tourist numbers, encourage more spending, and reach the government's high set targets."

 

Well...

 

Two out of three ain't bad

[Watawattana]

1 hour ago, RichardColeman said:

With respects , I am pretty sure my fellow UK compatriots fly to Benidorm on UK planes, stay in UK owned hotels, eat all day at UK restaurants and drink in UK owned bars. I doubt many UK benidorm travellers give a hoot about local Spanish owned establishments 

Well said.  But funny you should say it, I'm a Brit and went to a well know Spanish island a few years ago, to probably the 2nd most popular town.  I tried, and I tried and I tried to find a Spanish restaurant serving local food.  Failed.  All I found was German, British, Swedish, and Indian.  A few others.  Some had Spanish dishes on the menu.  But I could not find a Spanish restaurant run by a Spaniard.  Sad.  Obviously couldn't cover 100% of the town in a long weekend.

 

No such issue in Greece, where most seemed to be Greek-run.  Yeah some swerving Brit/German/Russian food, but most serving top quality Greek food.

[sambum]

Well, whaddaya know? There's a surprise!

[IamNoone88]

I would prefer the peace and quiet of a zero Chinese tourist = zero dollar policy.

[sambum]

3 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

As Einstein said doing the same thing over and over again without any change and expect a different result is called stupidity. Thailand is constantly doing so.. The zero dollar tours, focus on numbers of tourists instead of benefits, focus on rich expats and millionaires, and than being surprised that things are not doing what they hoped for.. 

 

But the Chinese are being protected and stimulated, and now the result is that they are a burden and it is almost impossible to stop it now

 

"................focus on numbers of tourists instead of benefits,...."

 

And I think TAT can be mostly blamed for that with their obsession for numbers!

[sambum]

26 minutes ago, ignore it said:

" ...their goal is to boost tourist numbers, encourage more spending, and reach the government's high set targets."

 

Well...

 

Two out of three ain't bad

 

I only count one!

[sambum]

2 hours ago, Aussie999 said:

First, you need to understand, Thailand counts tourist twice, on arrival and on departure, but they also count Thais travelling internationaly, again they also get counted twice.

 

Probably the counting system installed by ?????? You got it - TAT!

[Dan O]

3 hours ago, mfd101 said:

Um, so the 'zero-dollar' tourists don't stay in hotels in Thailand? And they don't eat any food while in Thailand?

 

To me it just sounds like competition, the basis of capitalist enterprise. I should have thought the Thai oligarchs would be familiar with the concept.

I guess you missed the part about all the shops, resturant and hotels that these tours are funneled to are Chinese owned companies?  They also undercut the thai companies on pricing to drive them out of those business sectors. The money doesnt go thru the Thai economy, it goes back to China. 

[retarius]

I've heard this term 'zero dollar tours' many times but do not know what economics lie behind it. 

15 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

They utilize Thai nominees to offer services at a lower fee, often making a loss to overtake Thai competitors.

I don't see how a business can run at a loss for year after year even if they use foreign nominees. You can undercut the competition for a while, but in the end, you have to price your service to make an annual profit sooner or later. 

I am heartily sick of the tourism industry bitching with their hands out month after month. 

[ujayujay]

4 hours ago, hotchilli said:

Thais screwing Thais for business opportunities.

No, that means free market economy

[Taboo2]

No sympathy for More Runs who cannot control their tourism money.  Any country that let in so many tourists and cannot get back some "coin" from said tourists, are just plain stupid.  Know the game.  The Chinese are playing the Thai Government like the Issan babes play the lonely mongers and take all their money.

[harryviking]

Lol! The Chinese tourists have NEVER brought any money to Thailand. At least not of any usable amount! The madness of letting millions of these people into Thailand freely is mindboggling. It really show how little the new "not elected" government did know what they were doing😆. 

[NoDisplayName]

4 hours ago, stupidfarang said:

Not just the travel, this happens in many other areas, now in the south the Chinese are building large warehouses from which they buy direct from the durian growers, then on to Chinese containers on Chinese trucking companies for transport. Cut out the middleman, all profit back to China, same is happening in logistics like couriers.

 

Capitalism bad!

Cronyism good!

[NoDisplayName]

27 minutes ago, retarius said:

I've heard this term 'zero dollar tours' many times but do not know what economics lie behind it. 

I don't see how a business can run at a loss for year after year even if they use foreign nominees. You can undercut the competition for a while, but in the end, you have to price your service to make an annual profit sooner or later. 

I am heartily sick of the tourism industry bitching with their hands out month after month. 

 

The same logic that lies behind "all expenses paid" vacation packages bought in western countries.

 

Tourist wants to relax, so lets the travel agency handle the details.  Pay one price for flight and hotel and meals and ground transport and entrance fees.

 

Same concept, same implementation, but in this case it's political.

 

China bad!

[itsari]

1 hour ago, Wrwest said:

There you go ... using western logic. Don't get me wrong, I agree.

The Thai Chinese businesses have shown to be using there logic to circumnavagate the rules on Chinese ownership in Thailand as proved in an investigation in 2016.

 

[mfd101]

58 minutes ago, Dan O said:

I guess you missed the part about all the shops, resturant and hotels that these tours are funneled to are Chinese owned companies?  They also undercut the thai companies on pricing to drive them out of those business sectors. The money doesnt go thru the Thai economy, it goes back to China. 

So the hotels, restaurants & shops which the Chinese 'tourists' are funneled thru are staffed by Chinese from China? and the food the tourists eat is imported specially from China? and served only by Chinese from China? and not a single Thai person benefits from the whole deal?

[Thumbs]

Do they walk around with their eyes closed?  This has been going on forever Russians generally come here then frequent Russian owned bars/restaurants  and hotels. The affluent Chinese and  Indian tourists they sought to attract aren’t bothered about a few baht visa fee. They have attracted middle class visitors who don't have the money to spend freely and will  think “I’m not paying that i can get it cheaper in my home country “  

[illy]

There are 3 illegal business doing 'activities that are allowed' in my soi alone let alone the whole Moo Baan, not Chinese though but other quality group we have so many of in Phuket.

[NoDisplayName]

16 minutes ago, mfd101 said:

So the hotels, restaurants & shops which the Chinese 'tourists' are funneled thru are staffed by Chinese from China? and the food the tourists eat is imported specially from China? and served only by Chinese from China? and not a single Thai person benefits from the whole deal?

 

What are you doing, man?

Don't contradict the narrative.

 

China bad!®

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AndreasHG]

2 hours ago, Watawattana said:

Well said.  But funny you should say it, I'm a Brit and went to a well know Spanish island a few years ago, to probably the 2nd most popular town.  I tried, and I tried and I tried to find a Spanish restaurant serving local food.  Failed.  All I found was German, British, Swedish, and Indian.  A few others.  Some had Spanish dishes on the menu.  But I could not find a Spanish restaurant run by a Spaniard.  Sad.  Obviously couldn't cover 100% of the town in a long weekend.

 

No such issue in Greece, where most seemed to be Greek-run.  Yeah some swerving Brit/German/Russian food, but most serving top quality Greek food.

In Spain is perfectly legal for a foreigner to buy a business and work in it, especially if the foreigner is a citizen of the European Union and does not need any work permit to be legally entitled to work in the country (the same applies to Greece, of course, and any other EU country).

In Thailand, certain businesses and jobs are legally exclusively reserved to Thais, and foreigners are only allowed to put their money in them and act as minority shareholders.

Thai laws are outdated and intended to protect the local elites (the middle class and the poorest Thais would only benefit from more foreign investments and employers' competition). 

They end up attracting unscrupulous businessmen, who are more than willing to breach the law, and can't care less abot local employment laws, taxes, health and safety regulations, etc.

It is much worse than zero-dollar tourism. It is net-negative-dollar tourism.

[goldenbrwn1]

3 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

With respects , I am pretty sure my fellow UK compatriots fly to Benidorm on UK planes, stay in UK owned hotels, eat all day at UK restaurants and drink in UK owned bars. I doubt many UK benidorm travellers give a hoot about local Spanish owned establishments 

Having recently been to Benidorm for a stag week in July (yes it was messy) .There are many British themed bars and pubs on the main strip but also many Spanish owned ones . Lots of Brits stay in the old town which is all Spanish tbf. But yeh I get your point. But tour groups being controlled to only spend or go to certain places and a few Brit themed bars/restaurants in Benidorm isn’t exactly on the same level tbf . And remember these bars are all paying tax in Spain 

[khunjeff]

1 hour ago, retarius said:

I've heard this term 'zero dollar tours' many times but do not know what economics lie behind it. 

 

I don't see how a business can run at a loss for year after year even if they use foreign nominees. You can undercut the competition for a while, but in the end, you have to price your service to make an annual profit sooner or later. 

I am heartily sick of the tourism industry bitching with their hands out month after month. 

 

The concept of the zero dollar tour is that you sell a package for less than the actual cost of the airline ticket and hotel room, and then make the money back by taking the passengers to shops selling wildly overpriced cr@p and browbeating them into buying.

 

China and destination countries have been fighting these tours because they create an unpleasant and sometimes threatening experience for the participants, and ruin their opinion of the country being visited. Only in Thailand is the concern not about tourists being cheated, but only about the fact that local travel-related companies feel that they're not getting their share of the loot.

 

Contrary to the travel industry claims that are spewed out in these identical articles that now come out every week, the zero dollar companies are not undercutting prices in order to drive local agencies out of business. Their business model is completely different, and they couldn't care less what legitimate companies are doing or charging - they just want to keep using low prices to pull in suckers who can then be milked at ripoff shops. 

 

And as for the claim that no money goes to Thailand, did these companies bring their own land from China, and their own hotels to put on that land, and their own beds to put in those hotels? Did they bring their own gasoline to fuel their buses? Did they bring all their own food? (And who cares if they did - do you know any Thai who has traveled overseas without a suitcase filled with Mama noodles?)

 

If the problem is that foreigners own businesses illegally through nominees, then arrest the nominees and go after the officials who let the businesses be registered. If the problem is that Chinese products have been imported illegally, then go after the corrupt or incompetent Customs officials who let that happen. But those are separate issues from zero dollar tours.

 

And if everything has been done legally, then there's nothing to see here. Despite what local companies seem to think, they do not have some god-given right to extract cash from every foreign visitor. If a Frenchman comes to Bangkok on Air France, stays at the Sofitel, and only eats imported snails and foie gras at French restaurants during his stay, has he somehow taken money from the pockets of Thais? 

[FritsSikkink]

2 hours ago, harryviking said:

Lol! The Chinese tourists have NEVER brought any money to Thailand. At least not of any usable amount! The madness of letting millions of these people into Thailand freely is mindboggling. It really show how little the new "not elected" government did know what they were doing😆. 

Nonsense, they have bought a lot of property.

[Gknrd]

4 hours ago, Irish star said:

How many years have they known this , China Tours China Businesses. Only thing that trickles down is pollution from these damn busses everywhere and ruining Environment, open door policy for them 

Exactly, China is in pretty bad shape economy wise. Chinese are not spending now, it has got to be 10 times worse than it used to be. 

[Irish star]

10 minutes ago, FritsSikkink said:

Nonsense, they have bought a lot of property.

And it sits empty, because they will never use their in China banks again , too controlled , they just use Black money to hide it somewhere 

[Irish star]

4 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

The disgraced Srettha and the authorities have done this to themselves with their very liberal visa policies. In an absolutely desperation bid to attract tourists they've lowered the standard to the point where this is what they're getting. In addition to the Chinese Triads and the Russian Bratva. Congratulations on lowering the quality of life for everybody. Thailand is likely attracting more than 90% low budget tourists now. 

Indian gangs , Arab gangs oh it’s just Lovely Now 

[Irish star]

1 hour ago, khunjeff said:

 

The concept of the zero dollar tour is that you sell a package for less than the actual cost of the airline ticket and hotel room, and then make the money back by taking the passengers to shops selling wildly overpriced cr@p and browbeating them into buying.

 

China and destination countries have been fighting these tours because they create an unpleasant and sometimes threatening experience for the participants, and ruin their opinion of the country being visited. Only in Thailand is the concern not about tourists being cheated, but only about the fact that local travel-related companies feel that they're not getting their share of the loot.

 

Contrary to the travel industry claims that are spewed out in these identical articles that now come out every week, the zero dollar companies are not undercutting prices in order to drive local agencies out of business. Their business model is completely different, and they couldn't care less what legitimate companies are doing or charging - they just want to keep using low prices to pull in suckers who can then be milked at ripoff shops. 

 

And as for the claim that no money goes to Thailand, did these companies bring their own land from China, and their own hotels to put on that land, and their own beds to put in those hotels? Did they bring their own gasoline to fuel their buses? Did they bring all their own food? (And who cares if they did - do you know any Thai who has traveled overseas without a suitcase filled with Mama noodles?)

 

If the problem is that foreigners own businesses illegally through nominees, then arrest the nominees and go after the officials who let the businesses be registered. If the problem is that Chinese products have been imported illegally, then go after the corrupt or incompetent Customs officials who let that happen. But those are separate issues from zero dollar tours.

 

And if everything has been done legally, then there's nothing to see here. Despite what local companies seem to think, they do not have some god-given right to extract cash from every foreign visitor. If a Frenchman comes to Bangkok on Air France, stays at the Sofitel, and only eats imported snails and foie gras at French restaurants during his stay, has he somehow taken money from the pockets of Thais? 

All Chinese shops and businesses where the busses stop , only CP 7/11 get the trickle down 

[smew]

Only now  TAT recognizes this issue!!!???, chines spend nothing, sell us their junk and certainly will not come to Thailand to buy it. It has been like that  forever, all money stay outsid e of Thailand. Stop chinese tours completely !!!   

[Irish star]

4 minutes ago, smew said:

Only now  TAT recognizes this issue!!!???, chines spend nothing, sell us their junk and certainly will not come to Thailand to buy it. It has been like that  forever, all money stay outsid e of Thailand. Stop chinese tours completely !!!   

Environmental Disaster for what , their Masters