Netizens disagree with official numbers: The miracle 20% rise in tourist numbers [Opinion]

[robertson468]

Sadly TAT has lost credibility with their announcements of increases in Tourists.  Only yesterday, Thomas Cook, probably the biggest Travel Agent in the UK stated that they had gone from a large profit margin last year to a loss of £9m, but this also knocks all those "we know it all" amature reports on TV blaming Thailand for the drop in Tourists, into a cocked hat.  Sadly, many of them have little current affairs awareness, but that could also be said for TAT, who get caught in their own trap of manipulating the figures to save face.  Silly, silly, silly!

[Jane Dough]

5 hours ago, mikebell said:

The big spenders are mainly European/American.  The Government should encourage retirees from these countries by allowing them to buy a house and get a visa without 800,000 in a Thai bank.  They have to have a minimum spend of 65,000 a month.  Why can't anyone in Government see this?

65K are Big spenders? You are spinning it more than the TAT!

 

I spend that a month and I consider myself a proud skinflint pauper. 

 

Rooster

[marcusarelus]

15 minutes ago, robertson468 said:

Sadly TAT has lost credibility with their announcements of increases in Tourists.  Only yesterday, Thomas Cook, probably the biggest Travel Agent in the UK stated that they had gone from a large profit margin last year to a loss of £9m, but this also knocks all those "we know it all" amature reports on TV blaming Thailand for the drop in Tourists, into a cocked hat.  Sadly, many of them have little current affairs awareness, but that could also be said for TAT, who get caught in their own trap of manipulating the figures to save face.  Silly, silly, silly!

What does Thomas Cook have to do with Thailand?  Isn't everything in the UK going downhill because of Brexit? 

[bangrak]

Oh yeah: 'being 'flexible' with the truth', like not daring to call the Ministery of Sports and Tourism, ...and that useless, self-serving, overly expensive, 'parking for ammart' of a T.A.T., a bunch of liars, isn't it...? 

[ReMarKable]

4 hours ago, fresher said:

Ex-pat long-stayer numbers appear to be about to dive due to the 'Embassy letter' fiasco. Will this statistic be reported?

 

Why woud any fiasco be reported? No.

[Knocker33]

Should read.  20% surge in transit passengers giving Thailand a miss for better, cheaper destinations 

[Stoker58]

If that was true (I know it’s not) it would mean that visa fees had previously been suppressing tourism by 20%.

[CharlieH]

Reported flame removed.

[Rimmer]

An off topic Thai bashing post has been removed

[ToddinChonburi]

Funny how everyone was complaining about an hour or more in line at immigration at airport and now its empty.   really !!!

[BestB]

Mid to end November it got busy, then about 2 days ago as of hurricane came through , all gone .

 

When I say busy , I mean fully booked for 2 weeks solid

 

i am in hotel biz, same reported by a few bar owners.

 

As it stands today, next 2 weeks I am somewhat empty , something like 30% booked. 

[Stevemercer]

This implies that people wanting to book a holiday (in China or India) somehow hear that visa fees have been waived, and promptly book a holiday to Thailand. It's hard to credit that this one measure is the reason why people suddenly want to come to Thailand. I imagine the waiver is pretty small in most people's holiday budget.

[sambum]

13 hours ago, Samui Bodoh said:

"...the numbers of arrivals has surged 20%..."

 

I have been visiting/living in Thailand since the mid 90's, and not once have I seen the tourism numbers go "down"

 

If (repeat 'if') the Thai government were to be believed in this, there would literally be no room to actually lay down anymore.

 

BS piled on BS piled on BS piled on BS piled on BS piled on BS

 

 

Totally agree  - how TAT get away with it I've got no idea - their piece of string is obviously made of elastic!

[simoh1490]

6 minutes ago, BestB said:

Mid to end November it got busy, then about 2 days ago as of hurricane came through , all gone .

 

When I say busy , I mean fully booked for 2 weeks solid

 

i am in hotel biz, same reported by a few bar owners.

 

As it stands today, next 2 weeks I am somewhat empty , something like 30% booked. 

It's useful and helpful to understand the scale of things, in order to ensure the advice is targeted appropriately:

 

How many rooms:

 

bar with <6 rooms above;

small hotel, >7 rooms but less than 18;

medium hotel, >19 to 40;

Larger hotel, >41 to 99;

Grande. >100?

 

 

[Derek B]

11 hours ago, mikebell said:

The big spenders are mainly European/American.  The Government should encourage retirees from these countries by allowing them to buy a house and get a visa without 800,000 in a Thai bank.  They have to have a minimum spend of 65,000 a month.  Why can't anyone in Government see this?

Exactly but then property prices will sky rocket & Thai's will be squeezed out of the best locations.

 

[Rimmer]

Some bickering posts removed

[DrTuner]

They might have surged. Right after dropping 50%. Millisecond precision at TAT these days.

[kandi]

18 hours ago, mikebell said:

The big spenders are mainly European/American.  The Government should encourage retirees from these countries by allowing them to buy a house and get a visa without 800,000 in a Thai bank.  They have to have a minimum spend of 65,000 a month.  Why can't anyone in Government see this?

Now let's guess: You're already retired or close to, have no savings that exceed 800,000 baht but a shitty pension of 65,000+ and you're American or European.

 

So, basically, you're asking the government to make the life for you easier. A self-centred, isn't it?

[Chelseafan]

15 hours ago, marcusarelus said:

EU residents spent 84 % of their tourism expenditure on trips inside Europe (79 % inside the EU).  Asia 6%

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Tourism_statistics_-_expenditure

Chinese tourists spend $782 per trip.  Non Chinese $486

https://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/nielsenglobal/cn/docs/Outbound Chinese Tourism and Consumption Trends.pdf

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure what your point is. Yes 84% of Europeans spend their tourism expenditure on trips in Europe because they are vacationing in Europe

 

Your second point only points how much much Chinese spend on shopping per Trip (not necessarily in Thailand) but that's plainly obvious as they are generally part of tour groups and are guided towards the malls also they don't spend that much more as meals & hotels tend be be part of a pre-paid package.

Europeans on the other other hand may not shop as much in malls but we tend to eat out, pay extra for excursions and spend our money on Entertainment.

 

My trips to Thailand are usually in excess of £10,000 including travel but a lot of my expenditure won't be registered as I'm sure the bars are not reporting their income to the TAT!

 

 

[Chelseafan]

15 hours ago, marcusarelus said:

Have you compared the sales at the many malls with the beer bars?  I'd say the malls win by billions of baht.  If you want to find out how much the Chinese spend google "Outbound Chinese Tourism and Consumption Trends." 

 

Of course the malls take more but not every baht spent in the mall is by a Chinese shopper. I'm pretty sure that Thai's would be top of the list.

 

It would be interesting to take a sample of 1000 Chinese and 1000 Europeans as they arrive and ask them how much they have to spend in Thailand

I bet Europeans would far out spend the Chinese per person. What the Chinese have is sheer numbers.

 

 

[Retiredandhappyhere]

On 11/30/2018 at 7:03 AM, mikebell said:

The big spenders are mainly European/American.  The Government should encourage retirees from these countries by allowing them to buy a house and get a visa without 800,000 in a Thai bank.  They have to have a minimum spend of 65,000 a month.  Why can't anyone in Government see this?

Many ex-pats using the 800,000 in the bank system, for safety and convenience, simply leave the money there all year on a term account earning around 1.5% and still bring in at least 65000  per month on which to live.  Some of us  even bring in millions of additional cash in order to buy condos or to buy their Thai girlfriends/wives houses.  Thus, the Thai Government get the best of both worlds and I wonder how long it will take them to realise this and take better care of all ex-pats living here?

[simoh1490]

19 minutes ago, Retiredandhappyhere said:

Many ex-pats using the 800,000 in the bank system, for safety and convenience, simply leave the money there all year on a term account earning around 1.5% and still bring in at least 65000  per month on which to live.  Some of us  even bring in millions of additional cash in order to buy condos or to buy their Thai girlfriends/wives houses.  Thus, the Thai Government get the best of both worlds and I wonder how long it will take them to realise this and take better care of all ex-pats living here?

The problem is that once that money has been transferred the government doesn't benefit, BOT benefits from the initial transfer by being able to increase it's foreign currency reserves but after that, it's only the banks who benefit.

[Chelseafan]

2 hours ago, simoh1490 said:

The problem is that once that money has been transferred the government doesn't benefit, BOT benefits from the initial transfer by being able to increase it's foreign currency reserves but after that, it's only the banks who benefit.

That's not true.

 

That expat has to buy food (vat) which also involves various companies in the supply chain having to pay tax to the government.

What about electricity, water and phone? these are all indirect taxes paid by the utility companies.

That 1,000 baht paid to a girl for ST ends up being spent on various things like food, makeup which are taxed.

Buying a car - direct tax.

Buying a bottle of wine (400%+ tax ?)

Buying a condo

 

I should imagine expats are a good source of personal taxation

 

[simoh1490]

31 minutes ago, Chelseafan said:

That's not true.

 

That expat has to buy food (vat) which also involves various companies in the supply chain having to pay tax to the government.

What about electricity, water and phone? these are all indirect taxes paid by the utility companies.

That 1,000 baht paid to a girl for ST ends up being spent on various things like food, makeup which are taxed.

Buying a car - direct tax.

Buying a bottle of wine (400%+ tax ?)

Buying a condo

 

I should imagine expats are a good source of personal taxation

 

Do you really think that if every Western expat (farang) left the country that electricity/water/phone usage and the tax paid on their consumption would go down in a meaningful way, ditto car/condo sales and the volume of short times, I don't think so at all!   In very rough numbers there's something like 4 million non-Thai people in the country, 500k of them are farang, any gap created by them from leaving would get filled by people from other countries I'm certain.

[Chelseafan]

12 minutes ago, simoh1490 said:

Do you really think that if every Western expat (farang) left the country that electricity/water/phone usage and the tax paid on their consumption would go down in a meaningful way, ditto car/condo sales and the volume of short times, I don't think so at all!   

 I was just pointing out that the Government benefits greatly from direct & indirect taxation from Ex-pats where as you stated that it's just the banks that benefit which simply isn't true.  They pay their fair share of taxation and probably more than the average Thai.

 

 

 

 

[simoh1490]

6 minutes ago, Chelseafan said:

 I was just pointing out that the Government benefits greatly from direct & indirect taxation from Ex-pats where as you stated that it's just the banks that benefit which simply isn't true.  They pay their fair share of taxation and probably more than the average Thai.

 

 

 

 

Whilst I agree with what you've written I'm afraid the numbers aren't sufficiently large or important enough to make government want to do anything about the expat. Years ago when Thailand needed foreign currency and revenue yes, today, no, there are too many other easier and lucrative ways to achieve the same end, tourism, exports and FDI being three.

[Chelseafan]

13 minutes ago, simoh1490 said:

Whilst I agree with what you've written I'm afraid the numbers aren't sufficiently large or important enough to make government want to do anything about the expat. Years ago when Thailand needed foreign currency and revenue yes, today, no, there are too many other easier and lucrative ways to achieve the same end, tourism, exports and FDI being three.

Absolutely but the strange thing about economics is that the good times have a nasty habit of biting you on the ass and by that I mean that there will be some event in the future that will seriously damage the Thai economy. Despite what stats the TAT churn out my guess is that quality tourism is down and income from tourists is only up because of the sheer volume of the Chinese visitors. The baht is far too strong and needs to be devalued. Rice & seafood, two of their major exports are down as importers can buy cheaper from other countries. Those expats could be worth their weight in gold. Anyhow I've gone slightly off topic.

 

[mikebell]

13 hours ago, kandi said:

Now let's guess: You're already retired or close to, have no savings that exceed 800,000 baht but a shitty pension of 65,000+ and you're American or European.

 

So, basically, you're asking the government to make the life for you easier. A self-centred, isn't it?

Correct I am British. Correct I wish the Thai Gov to recognise the fact that I have brought in millions of baht over the last 15 years; after I have put two Thai stepdaughters through Teacher training; after building two houses employing numerous Thai workers; after paying for private medicare for my extended family of course I would like the Thai Gov to value my presence and my baht.  The alternative is to enrich Vietnam and/or Cambodia.  My shitty little pension took me 39 years to earn and the main beneficiaries are Thai.

[mikebell]

19 hours ago, Derek B said:

Exactly but then property prices will sky rocket & Thai's will be squeezed out of the best locations.

 

It's a buyers' market because of oversupply & the Thai refusal to live in a 2nd hand house because it may have ghosts.  My house is on the market for exactly what I paid for it 14 years ago despite numerous additions/improvements.

[mikebell]

On 11/30/2018 at 1:02 PM, Jane Dough said:

65K are Big spenders? You are spinning it more than the TAT!

 

I spend that a month and I consider myself a proud skinflint pauper. 

 

Rooster

It does say a minimum spend which is what Thai Immigration decree for a 'retirement' visa.