Tourists - Who Is Lying This Time?

[grantbkk]

I am at a loss for words and that almost never happens "Runustoborderincredulous" that is brilliant... may I use it?

Absolutely! Thanks for the kind words.

[ozzydom]

Strangely, there was a piece on the 2010 cup in South Africa - they referred to the Confederation cup this year specifically - but the gist of the TV insert was that for every tourist that hits the shores, it supports about 8/9 more people.

By that they must mean right across the board, including trickle-down, I guess. Were that the case there would be no unemployment here in Thailand with +12m tourists each supporting say 8/9 Thais. Not sure what the stats are - maybe someone has them.

Some of these figures do seem rather obtuse.

BR>Jack

Comes down to how many in a given period. Tourists don't stay the whole year. Even if they on average supported 8 or 9 jobs, it's sure not for the full year. Probably a couple weeks worth on average, then a new tourist has to come in when they leave. Even at a somewhat low 5,000 per month per person, 8 people would run 5,000 X 8 X 12 = 480,000 baht for a year.

Which is about the amount that ONE western pensioner domiciled in T,Land spends per annum.

[loong]

Strangely, there was a piece on the 2010 cup in South Africa - they referred to the Confederation cup this year specifically - but the gist of the TV insert was that for every tourist that hits the shores, it supports about 8/9 more people.

By that they must mean right across the board, including trickle-down, I guess. Were that the case there would be no unemployment here in Thailand with +12m tourists each supporting say 8/9 Thais. Not sure what the stats are - maybe someone has them.

Some of these figures do seem rather obtuse.

BR>Jack

Comes down to how many in a given period. Tourists don't stay the whole year. Even if they on average supported 8 or 9 jobs, it's sure not for the full year. Probably a couple weeks worth on average, then a new tourist has to come in when they leave. Even at a somewhat low 5,000 per month per person, 8 people would run 5,000 X 8 X 12 = 480,000 baht for a year.

Which is about the amount that ONE western pensioner domiciled in T,Land spends per annum.

Judging from the responses to the many "How much can you live on in Thailand" threads, I would say that 480,000 Baht per year is a pretty conservative estimate. I would estimate that the average spend of a long term stayer in Thailand is closer to 60,000 per month, 720,000 Baht per year.

If I remember correctly, the average daily spend of an overseas tourist is 4,000 Baht per day, so maybe double that of the long term stayer/perpetual tourist. However, 2 week tourists are more likely to spend their money in expensive hotels and restaurants as well as tourist attractions, so their money will not be spread around so much as the retirees' etc.

[allcladrad]

"Runustoborderincredulous" One must remember no matter how incredulous that might seem to us, at least they are legal "imigrants". One would also think that the Thai government would want to work on discouraging illegal immigrates, yet they don't, they continue to employ measures that increase them.

When one looks at the numbers of western "visitors" in the Kingdom versus eastern "visitors" it might help with the perspective, reportedly there are 600,000 Chinese and Indian here. Most came on tourist visas, not all make visa runs, many stay here illegally. Probably no one knows how many illegals are here from the poorer border countries, almost all of which are illegal.

But, like many countries, Thailand penalizes those that it can control and skims over those that it can't. So the legals (read that to mean "middle class") will always pay for the illegals.

[rogercw]

In America the unemployed numbers come from the number of people on or applying for unemployment assistance. Since no such sytem exists in Thailand (as far as I know) how does the government compute an unemployed number?

[loong]

In America the unemployed numbers come from the number of people on or applying for unemployment assistance. Since no such sytem exists in Thailand (as far as I know) how does the government compute an unemployed number?

First the add up the total number of people who have jobs and they add to that the number of people looking for jobs. This is the total workforce.

The last figures I looked at were based on a total work force of about 38 million, with 500,000 looking for work. This is how they arrived at the figure of 1.4%

To me a workforce of 38 million sounds a little on the low side to me. Of the population, about 45 million are of working age.

[astral]

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics..............

Mark Twain

[NaiGreg]

What is this gist of all this?