The Association of Thai Travel Agents (ATTA) projects international tourist arrivals to Thailand through its members will decrease by 38% to 1.5 million this year due to the persistence of global economic problems and local political instability. […]
In the first 10 months of this year, ATTA reported tourist arrivals through its members dropped by 30% year-on-year to 1.257 million. The lowest point was October with only 89,388. (Bangkok Post)
The figures are adamant. What is more funny are the explanations… 😉
“Initially, we expected October arrivals of 140,000, slightly lower than last year’s 143,746, but the strike by railway workers caused many rail-based tour groups, especially those from Malaysia and Singapore, to cancel their trips,” he said.
The incident also affected European visitors who bought rail packages, as they simply moved to other countries.
Mr Surapol added that the greatest plunge in visitors came from South Korea, whose arrivals dropped by 56.5% to 70,526, followed by Japan, off by 38.4% to 135,202, and Finland, down by 37.9% to 8,095.
Do you know a lot of european tourists buying “rail packages” to visit Thailand from another country (we are talking here about international arrivals)… ?
Anyway, let’s be serious. The Green Shoots Mania hasn’t “touched” the masses of international travelers. Obviously.
The party is over. They need money to pay back the banks bailouts, to pay for the insane keynesian policies of all the government in the world, many lost their job, their house, and they are burried under debts (public and private)… so they have less money for the bagatelle, AKA some holidays in Thailand to get their skin burned by the tropical sun, eventhough they love it.
And ask yourself : will they have a higher income tomorrow compared to today ? And compared to yesterday ? It’s all about income, AKA solvent demand.
This a basic principle that the clowns don’t want to understand. Income. Income. Solvent demand. Jobs. And debts.
A “jobless recovery” like they say is nothing more than a pathetic oxymoron. There is no sustainable recovery, only a statistical fart as far as GDP is concerned, and a propaganda fantasia sold by corrupted politicians, totally burned out, scared of their own shadow.
And there won’t be any recovery, while developed economies are still destroying jobs.
Thailand Crisis 
well they use the same accounting technique as exports fell less than expected last month due to gold exports. u want to know how tourism is faring then just ask the people in the tourist trade. business is down atleast 40%. in soem places as pattaya it is close to 60%.
if tourists have less money we make make them they think they have more if we devalue the thai baht by 20% ( u know amazing thailand).
The last remaining tourist arrivals are getting scammed too often, resulting in a negative impression of Thailand.
Deservedly so I may add.
Photo of tourist scammers here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21533131@N06/sets/72157616786296908/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29324583@N05/sets/72157616768273247/
I am from Europe but work around South East Asia and arrive 10-12 times a year in Thailand, but don’t really add anything to the tourist sector. Are my arrivals included in the statistic as my nationality or from what ever South East Asian country I might arrive from?
What I don’t understand is why most 5 star hotels in Bangkok raised their room rates to High-Season pricing at the beginning of November.
Case in point Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit has been hovering around 4.500 THB++ per night for the last few months and had very low occupancy rates. With occupancy un-changed, they now want 7,000 THB++ per night (“because now is high season.).
I walk around Suvarnabhumi, Erawan, Sukhumvit, MBK and I do not perceive any increase in inbound tourism.
Bob : yes. Those figures are given by Immigration. I can’t see how they could discriminate between “Bob-traveling-for-biz-1-time-per_month” and “Bob-willing-to-go-the-beach-1-time-per-year”. 😉
So from my understanding, these data :
… are all the entries in Thailand, via Suva airport, whatever the visa (or visa exemption) the foreign individual might have.
The tourists, as the jobs lost during this job loss recovery, wont be coming back – period.
In fact it’s going to get worse as the real tsunami is coming in commercial real estate, probably in the second quarter of 2010. Couldn’t be worse than last year’s U.S. residential market crash? That remains to be seen. But it’s coming soon & there’s nothing that can prevent it. The US & European governments shall intervene, trying desperately to delay the day of reckoning, & may even succeed. For a while. But make no mistake about it, it’s coming.
But that is not the end of it. There’s a second huge wave of U.S. commercial real estate failures on the way in 2015-16.
And as the overall commercial real estate crisis escalates, the banksters will do the same thing they did last year: run to their government, palms outstretched.
If we look at the volumes, the commercial real estate disaster is less than residential. But still, it’s a big number. And some local banks have a huge exposure to this mess.
What is frustrating is that we know, quite well, what will happen. They all know. But there is nothing they can do… The unknown is the scale, and how long the gvt will be able to postpone the reckoning. And how much it will cost us (bailout etc.). Eventually. 😉
TC
RE: “And some local banks have a huge exposure to this mess.”
As you are aware, like home loans, commercial backed securities (CMBS) in recent years have been bundled into omnipresent exotic financial vehicles (known as conduits) which can be sold and resold. Banks were among the significant buyers of CMBS & are now sitting not only on their own malperforming loans, but on a whole lot of everyone else’s toxic junk, too.
How bad are the conduits?
A 3% default rate in 2008 jumped to 6% in 2009 and expected to double again to 12% in 2010. An entity that takes a 12% hit to its portfolio – and this includes countless banks, pension and annuity funds, international institutional investors, and others – is in deep, deep trouble.
But hey it’s all good. I read all over the news today that tourism is back to full scale..
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30116321/Mall-mayhem
i think the best way to gauge tourism increase or decrease if to look at the profit/loss of the hotels. these numbers dont lie. i travel to europe for business and when i come back i am also a tourist!! by this measure the tourism is down 50% not 30% if they are including all businessmen travelling around.
the commercial real estate crash will be staring ue in the eye bu this xmas. when the holiday shopping numbers are known we will know that we are in a depression not a recession. in the mean while lets enjoy the thaksin show.its more fun!!
Cambodia ‘stands to lose B40bn’ income
http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/tourism/159622/cambodia-to-lose-bt40bln-income
“European tourists are now refraining from visiting Cambodia’s Angkor Wat and are instead visiting the Northeast of Thailand, which has a similar culture and tourist attractions,” Apichart Sangka-aree, an adviser to the Association of Thai Travel Agents said.
Apichart appears to be really pushing the limit on his ‘functional moron’ category. (Great line Bedwyr)
Indeed Bob. This guy is coming from (deep) outer space ! To compare Angkor Vat and… let’s sai Pi Mai temple (near Korat)… is just ridiculous. The style might be the same, but the scale can’t be compared.
There is nothing close to Angkor, the Bayon… nothing. In the whole Asia.
However, I don’t say that people shouldn’t visit the khmers temples located in Thailand too (oh my god they are going to throw me in jail) ;-)…. if you have to choose (because time, because money, whatever), you have to go to Angkor. It’s compulsory. And double compulsory since time is running out… Eventually, they will have to curb the number of visitors. It’s unavoidable. Already, there are way too many people… Angkor is fragile.
Last but not least, Wat Preah Vihar is magnificient too. But another victim of the feud between Thailand and Cambodia.
Well, if Bob-The-Builder, Joe-The-Visa-Runner on a flight to KL or Singapore and all other business travellers living in their own or company provided condos all are included in the tourist statistic as an arrival from their native farang country, then the “real” going-to-the-beach or riding-an-elefant tourist numbers must be way down.