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TAT shows foreign visitors by the numbers


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2 hours ago, morrobay said:

And for any restaurants that cater to these bus lodes you can expect less quantity and quality. They don't care about repeat customers any more when they have 1000's of Chinese. Unfortunately I experienced this in what was a great seafood restaurant in Jomtien. 

Fully agree. We discovered a very nice Thai restaurant in Mae Rim/Chiang Mai recently, and since we used to go there about twice a week. When we tried to book a table for lunch on Sunday, 30th December 2018, they replied they don't accept reservations on such peak days due to the influx of many tour groups. Well, they are probably almost all one-time customers, but as these are the restaurant's rules, they have just lost an annual 100-time customer - we also have our rules.....

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1 hour ago, SOTIRIOS said:

...adds up to 26 Million....???

That was my immediate take on TAT's numbers.  They add up to 26.4 million, leaving a total of 11.6 million unaccounted for.  It would be interesting to know where these 11.6 million came from.  All from European countries? Passengers in transit?  Thai tourists?  The mind boggles.

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Those who are doing a border run are considered as "one more tourist" per border run. Those who enter Bangkok at Suvarnabhumi and proceed to Don Muang to fly to Vietnam or else, are considered  a tourist in Thailand, even when they only stay for hours. Have a look at Samui right now. This place is empty and businesses are closing. I do not believe the numbers of the TAT.

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3 hours ago, keemapoot said:

Yeah, recently ate at Moom Aroi Naklua branch, uniformly rated one of the best seafood places, but was packed with Chinese tourists this time, and yes, the quality was not up to standard. I suppose this might be because they are not used to producing in such large quantities at one time when a tour group arrives?

There's not a kitchen on the planet that can cope with 30-100 (unscheduled) orders hitting it all at once and hope to put out anything decent.

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4 hours ago, colinneil said:

The chart above shows it was made by the T.A.T. intelligence centre:cheesy:

Intelligence within T.A.T. laughable just laughable.

Have you ever thought of saying affirmations?

 

How about waking up in the morning and saying, "I will not practice and self-righteous indignation today and try not to criticize anything Thai". I guarantee that it well help you look at your own shortcomings and lead a happier life.

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10 minutes ago, MrPatrickThai said:

Have you ever thought of saying affirmations?

 

How about waking up in the morning and saying, "I will not practice and self-righteous indignation today and try not to criticize anything Thai". I guarantee that it well help you look at your own shortcomings and lead a happier life.

1

How about you finding another person to criticize?

You are concerned about my shortcomings, please look at your own first.

Also i am perfectly happy in my life, in fact its almost perfect.????

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34 minutes ago, worgeordie said:

I think that should be  propaganda Centre 

4 million Malaysians ,mostly day trippers I

think.

regards worgeordie

I wondered about that Malaysia figure too. And also the Laos 1.8M figure. Is that almost entirely Laotians popping in and out, combined with tourists into Thailand doing a short side trip to Laos and then being counted twice. 

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41 minutes ago, vsigrist said:

Fully agree. We discovered a very nice Thai restaurant in Mae Rim/Chiang Mai recently, and since we used to go there about twice a week. When we tried to book a table for lunch on Sunday, 30th December 2018, they replied they don't accept reservations on such peak days due to the influx of many tour groups. Well, they are probably almost all one-time customers, but as these are the restaurant's rules, they have just lost an annual 100-time customer - we also have our rules.....

I sympathise having had a similar experience. However, the individuals on the tour bus are not the restaurant’s customers. The restaurant’s customers are the tour operators and they are bringing a quantity of business to the restaurant that an individual regular like you and me can’t match. 

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6 hours ago, yogi100 said:

It just shows how the Western nations are becoming less prosperous and less important globally while the Eastern nations are forging ahead.

 

It should also make you wonder why.

Maybe, but the average Chinese visitor comes for 4 days while the average western visitor comes for 3 weeks. The Indians are renowned for being cheap Charlies sometimes staying 4 per room (Indians from India, not the UK/USA) so Thailand gets a better return per visitor with Western tourists. Also with the strengthening baht, westerners may just choose other options closer to home. Spain, Greece, Italy, Turkey, former Eastern Bloc countries all are excellent value. North Africa as well is as cheap as chips if you can stomach the possible terrorism. So thing may have nothing to do with declining prosperity. Remember, Russian, Chinese, Indian options are somewhat limited by the visas they have to qualify for. 

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20 minutes ago, Ashto said:

I sympathise having had a similar experience. However, the individuals on the tour bus are not the restaurant’s customers. The restaurant’s customers are the tour operators and they are bringing a quantity of business to the restaurant that an individual regular like you and me can’t match. 

You are correct, but you can be sure that these tour operators being the shrewd hard-nosed negotiators they are, are getting a 30-40% discount. Also, the expats/retires come tear round smoothing the low season-high season. 

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4 hours ago, keemapoot said:

That's not true at all with respect to the US. US tourists are the 2nd highest spending foreign tourists globally after China, though with a much smaller populace.

 

A US tourist has many, many cheaper and closer destinations that offer many of the same characteristics of a Thailand holiday. The average flight time is over 15 hours, and door-to-door travel time from US to Thailand is 24 hours. You can fly to resorts in Mexico or Caribbean in an hour or more for a fraction of the cost.

 

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-that-spend-the-most-on-international-tourism.html

Believe it or not but not all Western tourists are American.

 

I remember when you'd hardly see an Oriental tourist in the LOS apart from Japanese. Most visitors to Bangkok, Pattaya were British, Australian and from mainland Europe with possibly a preponderance of Germans.

 

Now millions of Chinese are visiting. It's the same in London where we never saw a Chinese tourist years ago now there are lots of them. Spending big money as well.

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7 hours ago, yogi100 said:

It just shows how the Western nations are becoming less prosperous and less important globally while the Eastern nations are forging ahead.

 

It should also make you wonder why.

Or maybe it shows that the 'Westen Nations' are becoming more selective - and I could think of a number of reasons why they might choose to go elsewhere. 

 

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1 hour ago, Retiredandhappyhere said:

That was my immediate take on TAT's numbers.  They add up to 26.4 million, leaving a total of 11.6 million unaccounted for.  It would be interesting to know where these 11.6 million came from.  All from European countries? Passengers in transit?  Thai tourists?  The mind boggles.

The 38 million is the total visitors for the year whilst the map only shows the top ten countries their from.

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2 hours ago, GalaxyMan said:

There's not a kitchen on the planet that can cope with 30-100 (unscheduled) orders hitting it all at once and hope to put out anything decent.

Credit where credit is due, mum aroi in Naklua, Pattaya seems to cope decently with spikes. If you take a look at the kitchen, it's like a huge factory, a separate building. 

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5 hours ago, Prissana Pescud said:

That is a laughable piece of philosophy on your behalf. 

The poll shows that less westerners are coming to Thailand.

Why is that is the question you should ask.

Tourism in the west is skyrocketing. 

Westerners are giving corrupt autocratic countries the flick.

I agree. The internet and social media can reveal the realtime conditions; such as corruption, pollution, crime, safety, value and infrastructure. This is not just for Thailand, but also for many locations worldwide.

 

The days of outdated information, coverups and "smoke and mirrors", as they pertain to tourism, are numbered. Seemingly, the tourism beaurocracy spin machine continues to spew out whatever makes it all look bright and shiny.

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TAT has the face to name LAOS (non existent) tourism and forgot to name Burma/Myanmar last I heard they were estimated at around 2+ million (couldn't find the official source) as for Malaysia, sure they drive in back and forth every day&week end.... punch of BS and misleading info

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7 hours ago, Prissana Pescud said:

That is a laughable piece of philosophy on your behalf. 

The poll shows that less westerners are coming to Thailand.

Why is that is the question you should ask.

Tourism in the west is skyrocketing. 

Westerners are giving corrupt autocratic countries the flick.

You are simply wrong. Thailand is getting more and more regulated every year and getting more similar  immigration system to the western nations. The days are gone when dodgy farangs could stay in the country indefinitely on visa runs. Therefore the numbers dropped from Europe.

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10 hours ago, yogi100 said:

It just shows how the Western nations are becoming less prosperous and less important globally while the Eastern nations are forging ahead.

 

It should also make you wonder why.

Yeah, it's all about this f****g BREXIT, isn't it? 

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9 hours ago, keemapoot said:

That's not true at all with respect to the US. US tourists are the 2nd highest spending foreign tourists globally after China, though with a much smaller populace.

 

A US tourist has many, many cheaper and closer destinations that offer many of the same characteristics of a Thailand holiday. The average flight time is over 15 hours, and door-to-door travel time from US to Thailand is 24 hours. You can fly to resorts in Mexico or Caribbean in an hour or more for a fraction of the cost.

 

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-that-spend-the-most-on-international-tourism.html

Right, Americans drop Beaucoup bucks when they travel. A lot of people forget that the US already has a Phuket on steroids right next door: it’s called Hawaii ( it’s one of the 50 states ) and is much more beautiful than anywhere in Thailand. And Maui is even more beautiful. Maui is packed with super models and celebs from all over the world too which is always fun for people watching.

 

And all I’ll be honest, Hawaii / Maui is not that much more expensive than Phuket. I would argue it’s actually cheaper because things like cars, gas, Organic food, top quality medical care ( assuming you have insurance which most people do ) is significantly cheaper in the US. I mean a base model Mercedes in the US is under 1 million baht. If you want to eat healthy in Thailand, you have to drop 4x prices at Villa and Gourmet market because it’s all imported food. A decent bottle of wine in Thailand will run you 3000 baht vs in the US you can get quality for around 500 baht. Even beer is way cheaper in the US.

 

Bottom line is Americans aren’t very motivated to travel to Thailand, certainly not retire in Thailand, when they have Hawaii next door. America is an amazing country to live in so there isn’t much motivation for people to relocate.

 

The only advantage for an American to live in Thailand is if you’re a digital nomad and can work remotely. Due to FEIE, you don’t have to pay taxes on your high six figures US salary. I know a lot of remote software engineers for Google and Facebook and GitHub that live in Chiang Mai, Bangkok, and Phuket and the reason that they live here is to stack cash. You can stack cash real fast when you don’t have to pay taxes on your US salary. And you don’t have to pay Thai taxes because you’re not working for Thai companies. Your average software engineer is pulling $150 to $200k usd. You do 5 years remote in Thailand and you’ve basically stacked a million bucks cash before you’re even 25.

 

The other reason to move to Thailand over somewhere like Hawaii is that Thailand is extremely fun. Hawaii is fairly boring and lame if I’m being honest. There is zero nightlife in Hawaii. America in general is kind of boring, especially compared to Thailand. But for retirees who want boring and safe, there is no comparison, Hawaii smokes Phuket. There isn’t even an argument to be made. Hawaii rules for retirees. 

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8 hours ago, puukao said:

What?  What I told you western nations are going to MORE expensive countries?  What If I told you the stock markets and home prices are much higher in those countries?

 

What if I told you 2,000,000 westerners went to Italy, UK, France, Germany and Greece instead of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines?  

 

 

"What I told you western nations are going to MORE expensive countries?"

 

That would make no sense. It'd be gobbledegook. How can a Western nation or any other nation be going to MORE expensive countries?

 

You simply can't make a nation go to another country, it's a physical impossibility!

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