My wife and I transited BKK on way to Khon Kaen this morning. About 25 minute wait at passport control.

We headed downstairs to the food court for cheap eats. A gaggle of noisy Chinese blocked the entry. Thus began a discussion of the merits of Chinese tourists. According to my wife, there are none. :-)

Anyway, we're in country now, so you should see an uptick in the economy.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Do not hold your breathe or believe these lies. Nobody really want to come to Thailand because of ISIS threat and government comment to foreign countries Ambassadors. They just keep digging the hole deeper by there mouths1

I would have thought that departures would be getting busier, not arrivals! I'm giving serious thought of going somewhere else for my next trip.

There's an app you can get which shows the number of flights,their times and the places they are coming from,of the last 16 flights 10 came from China,5 from South Korea and one from Australia,non from Europe,maybe the TAT can explain that one.

There's an app you can get which shows the number of flights,their times and the places they are coming from,of the last 16 flights 10 came from China,5 from South Korea and one from Australia,non from Europe,maybe the TAT can explain that one.

Private sector entities such as the Tourism Council of Thailand (TCT) earlier forecast the country should receive up to 30 million tourists this year due to large numbers of visitors arriving from China.

Seems to tie up nicely with what TAT have already said... just go to DMK around 7AM and there are few Europeans, Americans, Brits or Aussies to be found, however you will find a very large number of Chinese tourists...

I was reading an article in one of the newspapers yesterday that reported the TaT as saying the Scandinavian tourist numbers were expected to be down 10% this year, due to the fact that the destinations of Bali & the Caribean were being heavily promoted by the Skandi tourist board as options for their tourists INSTEAD of Thailand.

Now as we all know on here if the TaT has quoted a figure of 10% it's way more likely to be 25%.

If any of you can find this article from the B.P. it does make a good 1 minute read..worth it for the knee-jerk reaction from TaT almost saying

"Well we did'nt need them anyway".

This report also mentioned a shift in the TaT's target tourists from 'Quality Tourists' to 'long term spending' ones..slight irony here.. when they've just

made it so damn hard to get long-stay Tourist Visas now.

Why is there nobody in Pattaya if this is the highest ever total? 50% discounts on hotel rooms...with additional visitors one would expect higher prices, no?

Besides, numbers of tourists are useless....it is how much they spend that counts. Do all these Chinese spend as much as the Europeans that used to come did? How much do the hotel rooms cost that the Chinese use, or are there steep discounts. You can't pay your taxes with tourist numbers, however big they are.

Chinese don't pay for hotel rooms, they arrive on a package and spend sweet f a

Why is there nobody in Pattaya if this is the highest ever total? 50% discounts on hotel rooms...with additional visitors one would expect higher prices, no?

Besides, numbers of tourists are useless....it is how much they spend that counts. Do all these Chinese spend as much as the Europeans that used to come did? How much do the hotel rooms cost that the Chinese use, or are there steep discounts. You can't pay your taxes with tourist numbers, however big they are.

Chinese don't pay for hotel rooms, they arrive on a package and spend sweet f a

Perfect tourists are the Chinese, they don't hang around for long, they don't frequent go go bars and they don't use Facebook or Twitter 555

TAT, always good for a laugh!

You are so right there but for me anyway I'd add predictable, boring and frankly insulting when they churn out their nonsense and expect everyone to believe it.

The Centre for Aviation website gives these figures for total passenger traffic at Suvarnabhumi:

2011 47.9 million

2012 53 million

2013 51.4 million

2014 46.4 million

No figures for 2015 yet but anecdotal evidence is that it's not been a great year.

DMK has 400% increased traffic since 2012 with the transfer of carriers and honkies.

None of it points at how many actually come through immigration, but don't tell TAT, they may predict a 150% surge for 2016.

I've been in/out of swampy few times in last 2 weeks & it been dead every time. have friend in hotel chain & they super quiet .

TAT figures are dreams at best ...

Well it is busy in Pattaya! Particularly in the police station as they are working hard issuing tickets to make all the tourists feel welcome!

In Rome, the TAT's office is promoting Thailand as sport destination due to the many sporting facilities in the country that are on par with international standards.

Come to amazing Thailand land of the World's longest half marathon

We can't let tourist numbers increase. Come on folks! Get the word out!

I think people got tired of Thailand and many people are tired of thais bad manners

We can't let tourist numbers increase. Come on folks! Get the word out!

TVF should open a section in Chinese. That ought to do it.

Tourism: Chinese are the new normal. We falangs might just as well accept it. If the Thais who actually work in the tourist industry had anything to say about it, I suspect they'd much prefer the old farang constituencies. But they don't have anything to say about it, and the Thais that do are the government & bureaucratic elites who have a vested interest in exaggerating and misrepresenting everything to their own advantage. Frankly, I don't know why they bother. It's not like the Chinese will be impressed one way or the other. And the numbers of western expat "believers" must be dwindling by the month regardless.