Chinese tourists to Thailand on the rise: 16 percent annually

[MickRobbo]

It seems that most Chinese package tours spend only a few days in Thailand. As we have seen, it's mostly an " all inclusive" holiday which doesn't contribute much to help the Thai economy.Nearly all cheap package tours are bad deals for the country they visit.Anyone from Europe can remember the mass tourism in Spain in the 70 s and 80 s, it was the beginning of cheap holidays , and it was very hard to get the " money spending " tourists back. It was " tea like mother makes it" and " eggs beans and sausages" on every street corner. Other smaller countries who didn't have the room to put thousands of tourists didn't suffer from this problem.The problem is the same in some cheap Caribbean destinations. Like Thailand , there are package tours where it's all inclusive and you can pay from 800 ( 31 000 for a flight and whole week with meals in the sunshine. Most individual travellers spend this on flights alone. While young I worked in Benidorm in the late 60s . I met a family who couldn't afford to buy ice creams ! Yes, there are rich Chinese tourists who go to Paris and Nice for a week to buy designer handbags and clothes. They stay in 4/5 star hotels and visit the best restaurants. You wouldn't see those tourists here in Pattaya for example. So, in the long run, mass tourism brings nothing, except maybe bad feeling. From what I've seen and heard here, coming from Thai people , I don't think these package tours are welcome, and eventually it will spoil Thailands declining tourism , which already has lost much of its appeal world wide.

I see so europeans/americans/farang don't go on package tours but only chinese do.

Facts, ask any Farang/Thai business owner in the tourism hot spots

[geisha]

Howitzer, the subject was Chinese tourists. Of course Europeans etc go on package tour holidays. I think the main differences are , they travel much greater distances to get here, spend a bit more, lots of European tour operators are very professional and have been in the business for 40/50 years. Also ,they do not clog up the streets with tour buses, (which is enough to drive any sane person mad) and completely halt the traffic in major tourist areas.

[Howitzer]

Howitzer, the subject was Chinese tourists. Of course Europeans etc go on package tour holidays. I think the main differences are , they travel much greater distances to get here, spend a bit more, lots of European tour operators are very professional and have been in the business for 40/50 years. Also ,they do not clog up the streets with tour buses, (which is enough to drive any sane person mad) and completely halt the traffic in major tourist areas.

Yes the subject is on chinese tourists but the other poster was giving the impression that only chinese ppl do such tours in which i retorted oh so europeans don't which was obviously sarcastic in nature asking him so you don't raise the issue when europeans do the tours but only chinese?

On the issue of the tour buses. Well tough luck there are more chinese people in the world than europeans i suppose. China is also closer to thailand so it's easier to visit while europeans would be visiting other european destinations or somewhere closer to home maybe the US or middle east etc.

I don't really think the hotel owners/business owners are going to go crazy when they see those tour buses. After all more tour buses = more tourists = more revenue. The only ppl complaining would be visitors not part of these groups.