Thailand set for record tourism year
BY ANDREW J. WOOD, ETN THAILAND CORRESPONDENT

BANGKOK, Thailand - A series of recent reports released this week point to Thailand exceeding all previous tourism arrival predictions despite the recent bomb in its capital city. The official target of 28.8 million inbound tourists this year is expected to exceed 30 million - a record.

CBRE reported in their Hotel Trends Q2 2015, that Thailand saw strong demand for hotels from local and foreign buyers. With a weaker baht, the report claims that the tourism market continued to recover strongly with total arrivals up 30% on LY. Arrivals from China the report said, are growing significantly and tourists from this market now account for 28% of total visitors.

Bangkok is benefitting in particular from more short-break and independent visitors from China. The report suggests strong increases in visitor arrivals have continued to push up occupancy in Bangkok to 70% in Q2 2015, a huge improvement on the 50% recorded in the same period last year. ADR and RevPAR grew slightly, the report stated.

"Thailand Travel Grows 30%" was the banner headline in TTR Weekly's latest report, citing international tourist arrivals to Thailand improved 30.93%, January to July 2015, according to the Ministry of Tourism and Sports’ data. The data showed the country attracted 17,504,204 international visits during the first seven months of 2015 up from 13,368,979 visits during the same period last year.

Full story: http://www.eturbonews.com/63740/thailand-set-record-tourism-year

-- eTN 2015-09-15

Record arrivals. Record tourism related small business closures.

Welcome to the zero baht tourism.

The elite who own the big hotels and bus companies are rubbing their hands together.

The rest can go back home and farm rice, without water of course, that is needed in Bangkok to wash BMWs.

Here we go again...............Straight from the SPIN Factory.

Weaker baht against the USD granted. Against all other currencies?

There's alot of tourists around central Bangkok and Kao san rd at the moment. They look like transit tourists or low spending types

The expensive shops are empty, Robinsons is doing a brisk trade with Indians. ( discounts).

Rents are skyhigh but people keep having a go. Many businesses around me in Thonburi are going bust.

Ive never seen so many businesses go under as is the case now. Overheads are way too high. Thais arent spending money and foreigners are mostly on a tight budget .

Thailands tourism industry is basically a pig dressed up with lipstick.

All quantity no quality.

Welcome to the dreamland. When will Thailand finally grow up and recognize the reality. Bring people into the country does not stimulate the economy. The paying tourist stays out thanks to the political situation. Finished at last for you to lie in your own pockets with beautiful projected statistics, the other ASEAN countries are happens to foreigner friendly.

Comparisons to last year are of little worth as there just happened to be major political conflicts culminating in a military coup. Tourists have returned since political stability (of sorts) has returned but increased tourist arrivals does is not the main indicator as Chinese tourists do not stay in the country nearly as long as their Western counterparts. 20 Chinese staying five days of 10 Europeans staying 2 weeks? Which is better?

How long do chinese tourists stay by average? And how many restaurants/clubs/taxi's do they visit without their group?

Not that i care though, i'll stay far away from them.

What other kind of article would you expect from a news agency (eTN) that focuses on the tourism industry....eTN's revenue comes from tourism industry advertising....it's a cheerleader for the tourism industry.

the woman selling Som Tum around the corner from me reckons it will be 40 million; her guess is just as good as TAT, TCT et al.

If this report did not come from TAT,then I am afraid I cannot believe it

regards Worgeordie

Why are they so modest ... Just bang the number up to 50 mill. right away

I mean, who dosent want to see some terrorist action or getting harassed by Immigration, not to mention the dear RTP - I guess the sky is the limit ...

Sometimes reading these reports makes my head spin:

Tourists Up, Tourists Down. Boom, Bust all can be reported within 24 hours.

Sometimes, actually quite often, the Simpsons can simplify things for me. Exchange Enron for Thailand and voila!...

Numbers numbers............

Just wondering, every year I go home to BKK and get my exempt (maybe 5 times a year) do they count me as 5 tourists?

the woman selling Som Tum around the corner from me reckons it will be 40 million; her guess is just as good as TAT, TCT et al.

Nah mate her guess is better, as she has no reason to make up random crap to keep her job.

This time last year my pals came over from the UK and we had to squeeze into some bars in BKK and Pattaya. They have just come back for their annual beano. We had a few days in BKK and Pattaya. In many places in BKK and Pattaya we were almost the only customers in the place. Someone is living in Cloud Cuckoo Land

sadly the mid and lower mid class places are going to go away. I mention places like Flipper lodge in pattaya. Used to be a fantastic deal. now they raise prices, offer a crappy buffet "Free", which stinks because I don't eat breakfast and certainly don't want the same thing day after day.

Record arrivals. Record tourism related small business closures.

Welcome to the zero baht tourism.

The elite who own the big hotels and bus companies are rubbing their hands together.

The rest can go back home and farm rice, without water of course, that is needed in Bangkok to wash BMWs.

I can confirm.

The segment of individual tourism has become significantly less.

The organized bus tours with Chinese tourists increases.

The tourism dollar is distributed not on the entire providers site, on the contrary,

focuses only on few large operators.

Here on the islands (KS, KP, KT) are many bungalows empty.

Many small providers such as restaurants, bars, corner shops, family resorts, diving schools, regional tour operators, etc. have little or no tourists.

Have never seen the islands so calm.

A LOT of suitcases being dragged up and down Sukhumvit around Asoke/Nana the last few weeks

Thailand set for record tourism year

Well of course they are. Let's not let a crappy world economy, a junta spiraling out of control and a terrorist bombing get in the way of a rosy TAT prediction.

Oh, I forgot, now we also have the visa exempt crackdown.

Yesterday I was talking to a nice old massage lady who has a little tent on the beach near some 5 star resorts. She told me last year she was flat out with 5 or 6 customer per day. For five days in a row now she has not had a single customer.

Workaday Thais are losing their cars, businesses and home. Unless that situation is remedied, and quickly, civil unrest is assured.

must be invisible travelers or just face saving statistics.

Do ALL countries release tourist figures or projected tourist figures on a daily basis? How many civil servants does it take to massage the figures? And who cares anyway? !!!!

Numbers numbers............

Just wondering, every year I go home to BKK and get my exempt (maybe 5 times a year) do they count me as 5 tourists?

Yes i guess they do and soon they will get many more "tourists" dued by the crackdown on visa-runs. Now they will all start flying for a stamp.

Only in their small minds

Record numbers of tourists and yet tourist dependent businesses are going bust. Go figure.

You have to assume TAT also lists wanted bombers, terrorists and smugglers as tourists. As long as the numbers keep going up!

The number of tourists may very well go up. But the spendings are going down significantly. Thai tourism industry is moving towards mass tourism needs. One can see it in all parts of the industry. MBK once was a must go shopping centre for western tourists. Now shops in various segments there offer identical products. The standard clothes sizes are set by bobay market. No 3xl shirts for farangs anymore. The souvenir shops there almost all sell the same cute elephants. My impression is the shop keepers think the tourists will follow what they offer. If so, that attitude will break their business.

Prices of luxury products in Paragon, Emporium and similar now are higher than in western Europe.

Tourism related businesses in Phuket on the other hand keep overpricing things. A bottle of water for 35 baht at the airport normally would cost 8 or 10. Prices for taxirides still are terribly high (for Thai standards).

Raising entry prices for the national parks tenfold for tourists is another suicide attempt. Bamboo island still is crowded with (mainly farang) tourists, but the 400 baht admission to be paid in advance after paying for the standard motorboat-isands-tours will contribute to the gradually growing awareness of being allowed there for only one purpose: extracting as much money as possible.

The ever present rip offs take their toll. This summer we entertained several European friends. Some are regular guests who notice the change quite clearly. Another couple that was over for the first time had quite a few questions about the double pricing. Even the famous Thai smiles were doubted at times. In earlier years newbies always were positively overwhelmed by the Kingdom and its people.

It's the choice of country, businesses and people about which road to follow. Nowadays I strongly feel that the Thai people don't have a say in it anymore. My Thai family is ashamed at times when they notice the difference for their farang inlaw. They complained staff at a national park bigtime seeing the tenfold admission fee (which they tried to hide for me). Pride of showing a beautiful Thai waterfall was polluted by (governmental) greed.

The sad part about this is that a large majority of Thai's will buy into this propaganda bs, and of course a few TV members.

"Arrivals from China the report said, are growing significantly and tourists from this market now account for 28% of total visitors."

The number is actually higher than this if you remove the daily border crossers from Malaysia that come across for trading. I would say its closer to 50%.