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Why the Chinese are infinitely more important than Western tourists to Thailand


Jonathan Fairfield

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7 minutes ago, madmitch said:

One other interesting point made by Dan is stating that the Chinese pay more for hotel rooms. Well, I have no idea where he's got this informnation from as the Chinese tour agents are known to negotiate very low prices for their group tours, the consolation for the hotel being that they get year-round trade. Independent travellers mainly use CTrip, where prices would be similar to Agoda or Booking.com. Again, perhaps it's that higher spending lower percentage he's referring to.

 

They pack as many in a room as will fit. A good proportion of the group travellers are single females, the individual travellers tend to be couples. Therefore the extra revenue charged for, say, a third bed in a twin room results in higher room prices. Plus the organiser is likely to be in cahoots with the hotelier to bump prices for a share of the extra bunce.

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2 hours ago, KittenKong said:

As mentioned, tourist arrival figures are largely meaningless as a retired expat who lives here permanently and supports a house and car and family counts for exactly the same as a Chinaman who is just here for a weekend on a zero-dollar tour.

 

What is really important is the total spend per tourist, and what they spend it on. But I wonder how many Thais understand that?

I think they understand 80 million times 6000 baht per day by 2030 and a much higher GDP than any 3 countries in the West.  Multiply 80 million times 60,000 baht and tell me what percent of that total is expat expenditure. 

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Lets face it...the Chinese are on the move...strong economy and growing middle class...strong military and currency...they are poised to dominate the world...and to that end they have been quietly cultivating relationships across Asia, Africa, and South America...promising people jobs to help them remove their country's natural resources...

 

They have modern infrastructure and technology...they are patiently creating their new Chinese empire...

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I highly question these daily spending numbers.  Are they based on supposed full retail provided by the tour companies? So we are to believe that almost all regions and those including the Africans and Indians are outspending the Westerns tourists. OP please provide the source of data as well as how it is calculated or your numbers are bogus... and who is Dan Cheeseman and what are your credentials?

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6 minutes ago, tlandtday said:

I highly question these daily spending numbers.  Are they based on supposed full retail provided by the tour companies? So we are to believe that almost all regions and those including the Africans and Indians are outspending the Westerns tourists. OP please provide the source of data as well as how it is calculated or your numbers are bogus... and who is Dan Cheeseman and what are your credentials?

You're absolutely right. It's all nonsense.

 

Now back into bed with you. Nurse!! He's out of bed again.

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So , looking into my crystal ball I see that Dan will sell TV to some Chinese entrepreneur who will then make Chinese the accepted language for the forum. After that the only English posts will be from the same trolls that now post silly threads in Chinese and Korean.

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10 minutes ago, tlandtday said:

I highly question these daily spending numbers.  Are they based on supposed full retail provided by the tour companies? So we are to believe that almost all regions and those including the Africans and Indians are outspending the Westerns tourists. OP please provide the source of data as well as how it is calculated or your numbers are bogus... and who is Dan Cheeseman and what are your credentials?

This is what the bar graph looks like when money spent on bar-girls and check-bin tips are taken into account. ????

 

dfgdd.png.67d818e5caeac52480fd561b347a2b9b.png

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2 hours ago, Benroon said:

I would estimate the chances of your average western expat exchanging bodily fluids with a hiso Chinese are somewhere south of zero !

 

Me on the other hand …..

Chinese women are very picky, if not for your wallet then by your looks. And they are very sophisticated at their scams. I had to deal with some at work. They are always trying to find a way to go after the insurance companies. 

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Chinese women are very picky, if not for your wallet then by your looks. And they are very sophisticated at their scams. I had to deal with some at work. They are always trying to find a way to go after the insurance companies. 
Yeah because they can be. They killed most girls during the 1 child policy.

No country has more men/women imbalance than china...

Sent from my LYA-L29 using Tapatalk

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18 minutes ago, Traubert said:

You're absolutely right. It's all nonsense.

 

Now back into bed with you. Nurse!! He's out of bed again.

Check the most respected polling company in the world, Nielsen.  But even if they are wrong by 100% how much are 80 million Chinese going to spend in 2030? 

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I agree with the report actually. But, Thailand is stupid to shun westerners IMO. You never know what is going to happen and how markets are going to change. This kind of mentality never ends well.

Anyone ever spending much time in Thailand knows it is a horribly polluted country. And a 3rd rate retirement and tourist destination at best.

It is only good for one thing... haha.  And that is it basically.

 

I agree with others here that say the Chinese, Indians don't know any better. They are first timers. And they will drive the economy in Thailand. But, what westerner in his right mind would want to be in that environment..!

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4 hours ago, NotYourBusiness said:

Another humbling graphic (only 20 years away):

 

54c2c4aa-c0fb-4303-8edb-8d6d744ed2b9.jpg

Just buy some stock in a good index fund in China, then ride out the Chines run to power with a smile on your face... haha.  Personally I think these charts are Way over blown. But, to hedge the bet pick up some stock... ????

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Would be interesting if it wasn't plain wrong
 
The Chinese economy has been slowing for some time internationally and internally - Trump holds at least one of their nuts in a vice and the Chinese are in full stimulus mode !
 
Yes and even the part about currency is wrong.

The chinese have 2 fake currencies. RMB and CNH.

Good summary about it:


Sent from my LYA-L29 using Tapatalk

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38 minutes ago, Benroon said:

The Chinese economy has been slowing for some time internationally and internally - Trump holds at least one of their nuts in a vice and the Chinese are in full stimulus mode !

All it takes is for 3D printing and automated assembly lines to start popping up back west and nobody will buy the Chinese cheap crap anymore. That'll cut off their exports and their internal market ain't going to drive them forward. Can't wait.

 

One needs to remember this is all our own fault, the Westeners started funding China by buying the cheap crappy goods produced with the help of a large underpaid population. Now it's nigh impossible not to buy something made in China.

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9 hours ago, ThomasThBKK said:

Yes and even the part about currency is wrong.

The chinese have 2 fake currencies. RMB and CNH.

Good summary about it:

 


Sent from my LYA-L29 using Tapatalk
 

There are three names for the Chinese currency.

 

RMB - Ren Min Bi - The peoples money

 

CNY - Chinese Yuan - the way they trade on the currency market.

 

Kuai Tian -  bit money - the street name for the yuan. 

 

There is no such thing as the CNH. Incredibly, some <deleted> on twitter has made it up. ????

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14 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

All it takes is for 3D printing and automated assembly lines to start popping up back west and nobody will buy the Chinese cheap crap anymore. That'll cut off their exports and their internal market ain't going to drive them forward. Can't wait.

 

One needs to remember this is all our own fault, the Westeners started funding China by buying the cheap crappy goods produced with the help of a large underpaid population. Now it's nigh impossible not to buy something made in China.

China is now 55% domestic market, up from 38% in 2009.  They are going nowhere. Live with it.

 

Thanks for the post made on your cheap crappy China produced device. ????

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1 hour ago, DrTuner said:

All it takes is for 3D printing and automated assembly lines to start popping up back west and nobody will buy the Chinese cheap crap anymore.

This is already happening, but with automation rather than 3D printing being the current driving factor. For certain products, it now makes more sense to manufacture them in America, using robots to counter the high wages. In fact, even in China, manufacturers such as Foxconn are investing heavily in robots to counter rising Chinese wages.

The increasing fusion of IT with manufacture will result in more products being produced in smaller batches for more local distribution. 3D printing will be part of this. We are probably moving towards a situation in which most products will be manufactured on demand in your city and delivered to your home by autonomous vehicle within an hour of your order, but I would expect that to take at least a decade or two.

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but they also outspend Europeans per capita by 53% when in Thailand.

 

Instant saw that line knew article was going to be bullshit.

 

Even if you accepted the average spend figures (you would be foolish to, they are based on adhoc airport departure surveys) notice how article does not show average stay?

 

Average stay for Chinese is 8 Days, for Europeans is 17 days.

 

So, using data in article and combining with average stay from TAT, average chinese tourist is worth $1542 and average european $2132. So on that alone Europeans are worth nearly 40% more to the economy ( you get simerlar numbers from most rich origin countrys)

 

TAT is perusing the Chinese because the big boys, malls, large hotels chains and attractions , guys who have government officials ears, like the chinese as easy money for them, even after the chinese tour companys gouge them for discounts where possible. (And dont think for one second discounts  get passed on to tourist, money stays with Chinese tour company).

 

But even they are being short sighted, more and more hotels, malls, attractions  spas are becoming chinese owned and as soon as they have a chinese owned alternative the tour operators switch.

 

Remember a large nicer massage place in Phuket a few years ago, normal 1 hour massage was 300. Tour operator cut a deal with business to bring them X amount of clients per day if they would drop to 200. They did. Later on they found out, when operator asked them to not display their normal prices, they were charging their tourists 600 to 800. 2 years later chinese opened large massage spa in middle of no where, just for the chinese package tourists and dumped the local massage places they had deals with. Most of those local massage places are gone now because other nationalitys stopped going because of the bus loads of (now gone) chinese.

 

There was another situation with latex shops near hotels that chinese operators were using, because they were so much cheaper (even after Phuket’s normal inflated prices) than what was being sold at the Chinese mini malls/"discount shops" they were bussing tourists to, chinese operators put "pressure" on local authorities to have them closed.

 

So just using figures from article and one important data point they conveniently skipped, have established Europeans are worth  nearly 40% per person/trip to Thai economy, but if we factor in how much of chinese spend stays in China or goes straight back there got pretty solid feeling that percentage would be way way higher. Chinese might be spending X, but large portion of that money goes straight back into chinese pockets

 

And as the fallout from Phuket boat sinking showed, even if the Chinese were worth what they claimed, it is beyond stupid for Thailand to become to reliant on them, because unlike nearly any other nationality, they can vanish on mass tomorrow. And if Thailand gets to many of them, for to long, just like that massage shop, when the chinese do vanish there will be no one else left.

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9 hours ago, otherstuff1957 said:

I've done some work for companies that cooperate with TAT and saw and interesting TAT report a couple of years ago. 

 

The Chinese do spend, on average, about 20% or more than Europeans/Americans/Aussies.  However, a breakdown of where they spend their money was very interesting.  It is traditional for Chinese tourists to return to China with expensive gifts for their friends and relatives.  This is a 'face' thing so they are often willing to spend a big chunk of their total expenditures on these gifts. 

 

So, what do they buy?  They go to the high-end stores on Suk and buy brand-name stuff.

 

Unlike Western tourists, they don't usually patronize small, local shops, smaller guesthouses or local restaurants.  Consequently, even though they spend more money, much, if not most of their money goes to foreign companies and their wealthy Thai partners.  A relatively small portion of their spending goes directly to local merchants and local SME businesses. 

 

The tourists that benefit Thai SMEs the most are actually the much-maligned backpackers!

Very interesting post.  And sadly I think more true than not.  I loved Thailand for the local stores, restaurants, etc.  I hate big modern malls.  I got plenty of malls here in the USA.  I don't fly half way around the world to shop!  Heck I don't buy anything, and certainly don't buy stuff to bring home or to impress anybody.  Sadly the trend is likely to be the small shop owner gets displaced for bigger places, changing the landscape of the place.  Pattaya with Big C and Royal Garden and Carre 4 was all I ever needed.  The avenue, Central.... Yeccch.  OThers prefer other things.  I get it.

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Thai's like the Chinese tourists because they both look quite alike ? ????...and nobody would complain with some of those Chinese mixed busty hotties who stroll around and will soon crash the bar stool rates all over .... then we'll see if they are still friends..????

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