Chiang Rai launches a plan to attract more Chinese tourists next year

[webfact]

Chiang Rai launches a plan to attract more Chinese tourists next year

CHIANG RAI, 26 December 2014 (NNT) -- The association of travel agents focusing on Chinese tourists in the northern province of Chiang Rai announced the plan to attract more Chinese tourists next year.

Mr. Sompong Saejang, the president of travel agents for Chinese tourists has led operators to visit a place on Chiang Mai - Chiang Rai road, that is under the development plan to be a new attraction for Chinese tourists. The place will be opened at the end of December with many shows are planned such as crocodile show, snake farm and ethnic groups' culture performing.

Meanwhile Mr Prapat Phothasuthon, the project owner, said he had talked with tour agents in Shang Hai to fly tourists by charter flights directly to Chiang Rai. At the beginning there will be three flights a week and will increase the frequency of flight later on.

China has been Thailand's biggest source of tourists for years. The TAT has projected that in 2014, the number of Chinese tourists visited Thailand should reach 4.3 million. The authorities also launched a project to woo more mainland Chinese with hopes to increase the number to 5 million in 2015.


-- NNT 2014-12-26

[villagefarang]

I am sure there will be those who ask why, but tourists seem to like these kinds of things. If you give a commission to the tour companies, then guests will arrive by the busloads. This place may not be popular with local farang expats but my guess is they will make a huge profit.

[NeverSure]

I think seeing Wat Rong Khun (The White Wat) is worth the trip.

Chiang Rai is to me more the "real" Thailand than is Bangkok or even Chiang Mai. I just don't know the Chinese enough to know if they would like it as well as I do.

[villagefarang]

I love Chiang Rai, at least the surrounding countryside, and it is “real” but I am not sure how representative it is of Thailand in general. It certainly appeals to a certain kind of tourist already but I am sure there is room for expanding the market. I am a fan of Rai Boon Rawd and think their development plans will broaden the tourist base here in Chiang Rai.

Developments like the one proposed in this announcement have the potential to bring in more tourists while pulling them out of the city center, at least for part of the day, but contributing to higher hotel occupancies and the potential for more and better restaurants and shops.

Some people like big cities and shopping, some like the beach and others enjoy the mountains. Some are attracted to the quirky or odd aspects of different cultures, while others crave comfort and familiarity, at least when it comes to accommodation and food. These proposed shows will perhaps appeal to a different segment.

Local hoteliers complain about the lack of international flights so more charters may lead to more regularly scheduled flights in the future.

I don’t figure you can stop progress, so my preference is tourism over industrialization, especially since much of it is seasonal and easily avoided if that is your choice.

[pomchop]

A couple of years ago I tried to help a very bright/personable 24 y.o. Chinese gal who speaks/reads/writes Chinese, Thai and English almost fluently get a job at one of the higher end CR hotels. After checking around I found that none of them had any Chinese speaking staff nor did they have their room service or restaurant menus available in Chinese. She sent out a well done resume to each of the hotels and could not even get one of them to give her an interview. Amazing.

Hopefully the hotels and their owners or GM's will eventually figure out that if you want to attract the upper end Chinese tourists and businessmen to your hotel that you NEED to get with the program and have some staff that can communicate. A lot of the hotels seem to just depend on the Chinese escort to handle everything but that is very short sighted. As a market becomes more popular there will be more and more tourists/businessmen who travel independently and to assume they will all speak English (or Thai) is a big mistake.

A wealthy Chinese couple or businessman most likely will travel alone and if you want to provide them with deluxe level service you MUST have the menus available in Chinese and at least one staff member who can communicate with them. It's not rocket science.

I remember the same situation when the Japanese first started pouring into Hawaii....at first it was all groups following an escort everywhere they went...but these days there are more independent Japanese travelers than tour group members and I suspect EVERY hotel in Hawaii has Japanese speaking staff and room service menus/info sheets etc. Hawaii hotels are also starting to provide Chinese staff and translations. If you want to be a player you have to give the customer what he/she needs / wants. Hard to imagine the GM's of deluxe CR hotels can't see the potential of the Chinese market here.

[kartman]

Has the Association has also advised all bicycle rickshaws to keep them padlocked at any time there not being used.

[villagefarang]

In my experience businesses staff for current needs and not on the expectation of what might happen sometime in the future. If or when they see a need to hire Chinese speaking staff, I suspect they will do so.

[outsider]

Good luck CEI

[pomchop]

In my experience businesses staff for current needs and not on the expectation of what might happen sometime in the future. If or when they see a need to hire Chinese speaking staff, I suspect they will do so.

Well that is one way to look at it.

Another way is that IF you have a hotel that is proactive and staffs for and promotes to Chinese independent tourists that hotel is much more likely to attract that demographic. A smart hotelier doesn't wait until the competition has moved ahead of them to see the obvious reality that CR will no doubt attract more and more affluent Chinese.

I learned long ago that most Asian tourists will rarely complain at a hotel. They just go home and tell all their friends and never return.

[Mudcrab]

Many interesting comments.

But I think the reality, with this particular project, will be the Chinese will stay at a Chinese financed hotel with all the attractions in house.

There may be a few bus tours - but don't expect to see too much of the cash going to the locals.

There will certainly be Chinese speaking hotel staff, mostly from China for this specific purpose.

Call me a cynic but I have seen this happen elsewhere already. including other countries.

What we are witnessing is the Asian version of Butlins Holiday Camps for those old enough to understand that.

Rich and/or independent Chinese travellers have been doing their own thing for many years.

What we will see is mass tourism, not necessarily the quality tourist we often hear bandied about, on an industrial scale until the Yuan/RMB drops and domestic Chinese wages rise to a realistic level and that might take quite a while.

Edited December 26, 2014 by Mudcrab

[rethaier]

So... Will the Chiang Rai venues that presently ban Chinese tourists start letting them in?

[wotsdermatter]

Having lived in China for 3 1/2 years, after some 15 years in Thailand, I question, "Does Thailand need/want a mass of so called QUALITY LESS visitors who spit out unliked/uneadable food onto the table or floor, smoke while eating and having their children defecate/urinate everywhere when they want to using their pants that are split at the rear for "EASIER" ability to perform these functions." While on a recent flight from Shanghai to Bangkok, their seemed to be only 3 of us who were not Chinese. One woman, seated across the aisle from me, decided to remove all of her lower garments while standing in the aisle and put on a pair of somethings (don't know what) and the Chinese staff did nothing to correct her inappropriate behaviour. Sure we need such quality tourists but those of us who live here are scorned and ill/mistreated by immigration, police, etc. but they seem to get away with all kinds of things we cannot. Have not heard of any one of them complain about having to urinate in a cup or produce a copy of their passport/visa details for the police. Is that because they are not considered to be FOREIGNERS? Just a thought.

Never do they seem to have to do anything regarding their visa like we do.

Edited December 26, 2014 by wotsdermatter

[Tomtomtom69]

A couple of years ago I tried to help a very bright/personable 24 y.o. Chinese gal who speaks/reads/writes Chinese, Thai and English almost fluently get a job at one of the higher end CR hotels. After checking around I found that none of them had any Chinese speaking staff nor did they have their room service or restaurant menus available in Chinese. She sent out a well done resume to each of the hotels and could not even get one of them to give her an interview. Amazing.

Hopefully the hotels and their owners or GM's will eventually figure out that if you want to attract the upper end Chinese tourists and businessmen to your hotel that you NEED to get with the program and have some staff that can communicate. A lot of the hotels seem to just depend on the Chinese escort to handle everything but that is very short sighted. As a market becomes more popular there will be more and more tourists/businessmen who travel independently and to assume they will all speak English (or Thai) is a big mistake.

A wealthy Chinese couple or businessman most likely will travel alone and if you want to provide them with deluxe level service you MUST have the menus available in Chinese and at least one staff member who can communicate with them. It's not rocket science.

I remember the same situation when the Japanese first started pouring into Hawaii....at first it was all groups following an escort everywhere they went...but these days there are more independent Japanese travelers than tour group members and I suspect EVERY hotel in Hawaii has Japanese speaking staff and room service menus/info sheets etc. Hawaii hotels are also starting to provide Chinese staff and translations. If you want to be a player you have to give the customer what he/she needs / wants. Hard to imagine the GM's of deluxe CR hotels can't see the potential of the Chinese market here.

Employing a foreigner is difficult and since Chinese aren't ASEAN nationals either, it's a nuisance having to organize expensive work permits and paying them a higher than Thai salary. Thailand doesn't employ westerners (except in managerial positions) to speak English with western or other foreign guests, so personally I don't see why your friend should be more entitled to a job in Thailand than me or you. She needs to compete with everyone else, just the way it is.

Also, I think those hotels you speak of should try to get more Chinese speaking staff, but try to get them from the local pool of Thais who have degrees in Chinese or studied in China. Do you know how many Thais have studied, or are currently studying in China? A lot. And since they won't likely find jobs in China very easily, it would make more sense for them to be able to use their new found Chinese skills to use back home in Thailand.

Edited January 2, 2015 by Tomtomtom69

[Tomtomtom69]

Having lived in China for 3 1/2 years, after some 15 years in Thailand, I question, "Does Thailand need/want a mass of so called QUALITY LESS visitors who spit out unliked/uneadable food onto the table or floor, smoke while eating and having their children defecate/urinate everywhere when they want to using their pants that are split at the rear for "EASIER" ability to perform these functions." While on a recent flight from Shanghai to Bangkok, their seemed to be only 3 of us who were not Chinese. One woman, seated across the aisle from me, decided to remove all of her lower garments while standing in the aisle and put on a pair of somethings (don't know what) and the Chinese staff did nothing to correct her inappropriate behaviour. Sure we need such quality tourists but those of us who live here are scorned and ill/mistreated by immigration, police, etc. but they seem to get away with all kinds of things we cannot. Have not heard of any one of them complain about having to urinate in a cup or produce a copy of their passport/visa details for the police. Is that because they are not considered to be FOREIGNERS? Just a thought.

Never do they seem to have to do anything regarding their visa like we do.

I get your point, but I'm quite sure that Chinese who act up in Thailand are punished (but depending on what they did wrong, they are only punished in the typical Thai way, which usually preferences a cash settlement over anything else) and many Thais dislike them for their rude behavior. I don't think their appearance gets them off as scot free as you suggest. The recent incident on board that Air Asia flight to Nanjing would have been handled in a similar way if the perpetrator was another foreigner from a different country; it was only mishandled because the Thais are hopeless at handling these sorts of affairs, NOT because they were Chinese (besides, what's so special about ordinary, unconnected, uninfluential Chinese travellers? They are nobodys!) The Chinese paid their fines to the airport authorities and the airline and were put on the next flight to China, but once in China they were punished severely by the Chinese authorities themselves. In another instance an Australian on board an inbound THAI flight from Sydney also caused a ruckus and was initially taken away upon arrival in Bangkok, but not sure what happened to him afterwards. But I wouldn't be surprised if he also just got a slap on the wrist fine. There was certainly no indication that he was put in jail. If he were, then it's only because he probably didn't have enough cash and that's it.

Actually if you read about the recent Chinese tourist who took a trishaw out for a joy ride in Chiang Rai the first thing that was requested from him was his passport.

Chinese are singled out at Chiang Mai university and are required to take a bus tour to enter the campus, unless they are actually students on campus there. We westerners can just freely enter like Thais.

I too would be outraged if Chinese were treated more favourably compared to westerners, but apart from those cases where they may be able to sneak into a tourist site for the Thai price simply because the Thai staff mistook them for Thais, there is really very little they can get away with that I can't for example. Case in point is I can almost always get away with not paying a Baht at a police checkpoint if caught for speeding; I've never been asked for a copy of my passport, but my Vietnamese, Sri Lankan and other friends travelling with me on occasion have; travelling through checkpoints near the Burmese border usually gets me waved through.

I disagree about the visa situation - the Chinese generally have greater difficulty entering Thailand in the first place because they need a visa in advance. While it was free for a while, it now costs money again but that's not the point. The point is that while it's not particularly difficult for Chinese to get a Thai visa (then again it's not particularly difficult for any foreigner to obtain a Thai visa), they do need to have a job, be a student or retired. Unemployed Chinese can't get a visa and Chinese CAN'T avail themselves of the Thai visa-on-arrival for 15 days because the Chinese authorities do NOT let their nationals leave the country without a visa for the destination country in their passports. On the other hand, foreigners departing China for Thailand do not get checked for onward tickets if planning to get a visa-free entry.

Edited January 2, 2015 by Tomtomtom69

[Tomtomtom69]

So... Will the Chiang Rai venues that presently ban Chinese tourists start letting them in?

What kind of venues currently ban them?

But seriously, Chiang Rai does not need more Chinese tourists! As if enough of them aren't already coming, given that Chiang Rai is the overland entry point into Thailand most commonly used by Chinese, due to proximity to Yunnan, which is a mere 250km away via Laos. Entry via Burmese territory from China is prohibited due to there not being any formal border crossing between China and Myanmar at Mong La, but if that border were opened formally, there would be a massive increase in overland arrivals from China, partly because the distance between Mae Sai and the Chinese border via Burmese territory is not much more than 200km and from Mong La to Jinghong is less than 100km I think, making it much shorter to connect between Kunming and Thailand.

Thailand seriously has to stop it's overt obsessiveness with tourism and trying to promote mass mass mass tourism. You've already got enough Chinese tourists, more than you can really handle. How many more do you need?

While China certainly promotes international tourism to a degree, I've never seen China go on a mass tourism campaign to attract any particular nationality, including Thais.