2010 tourist visitors exceeded expectations...

[Super Joe]

http://www.tannetwork.tv/tan/ViewData.a ... rd=tourism

Despite political and economic turmoil, as well as natural disasters hitting Thailand in 2010, the Tourism Authority of Thailand has reported that foreign tourist arrivals were recorded at 15.6 million, surpassing the targeted 15.1 million.

Meanwhile, this year's target has been set at 15.5 million.

Tourism Authority of Thailand or TAT Governor Surapol Svetserani reports that December 2010, the high season for tourism, saw 1.3 million tourists enter the country...

Report from the Thai ASEAN News Network.




SJ

[Spitfire]

It truly is "Amazing Thailand", nothing sticks or makes a problem, should be called "Teflon Thailand" really, there could be a full-scale invasion by the Burmese Junta and everyone would still come for the sand, sea and s**.

Guess though that there's plenty "on offer" here that isn't elsewhere, guess that that might be why it's so resilient in some ways. Yes, we can 'Yap on' about other qualities that contribute but we all know which ones really count, and not just talking about the obvious one, there are others too.

[PeteC]

You really believe the numbers? They're fiddled, giggled or in some manner made to magically become what they want to tell the world....and potential future tourists. Problem is, no one can prove it...but I have a hunch. Pete

[Spitfire]

Probably true Prcscct, we couldn't possibly expect the truth now, could we?

[Dr Mike]

My hospital in Bkk records the number of International patients that we see and also identifies tourists--it was interesting how the numbers in April, May and June were understandingly down but in July started to recover and in the last quarter exceeded last year. Now i agree that this tells you noting about total numbers , just about the proportions.
Another statistic concerns hotel occupancy, I think these are close to being real but I believe that they only survey the 5 and 4 star hotels.

[caller]

Maybe the guy that provided the tourist stats should have a go at the crime reduction ones!

What I don't get is that all you here from the farang forums is how the numbers are down, If all from asia, where do they go?

[PeteC]

In this past year I think people simply were not traveling for economic reasons, as was the case in 2009 as well. I can believe 2010 bumped up a bit from 09, but not to the level they're publishing.

I just read a blip yesterday in a paper about UK expats. They're returning to the UK in droves. They only mentioned the exodus from Spain and I think Greece. No mention of those returning from Asian countries. I think the number was 20% more as compared to the normal yearly return rate. Pete

EDIT: Sorry Caller, forgot the 'Asian' factor. Due to economics as well, but more so IMO they shut down completely when the riots started. China, Korea, Singapore arrivals almost came to a standstill except for business travelers per my understanding. They are all very fearful about things like that. I would say they didn't begin to arrive again in any numbers until October.

[cookmanchef]

I believe the figures, trouble with us farangs is we can attach too much importance to ourselves. I haven't looked closely at the figures but I'm guessing a lot of growth from the Middle East, India and other Asian countries, certainly plenty of flights coming in from those places every day, I came in on LHR-Mumbai-BKK and the flight into BKK was 80% Indian people.

[charleyboy]

I've been a member at Lake View Golf for about 7 years.
The last 3 years I've never had to book a tee time in the high season.
First 4 years during the high season, you didn't stand an "earthly" without booking.
Maybe it's just the golfers that aren't coming.

[HAPPYGOLFER]

Yes , most of the golfers are away, so for a whlie we,ve had prices for playing golf at the new course( The Sea Pine) which you can compare with prices in the north of Thailand. But sorry , the prices is going up (after the 15th of jan). Is there anybody who can explain to me why. If you run a golfcourse, it must be better to have a lot of crazy people paying 1500 bath instead of a few paying 2500 bath for a round of golf
But for sure the tourists are coming back, even my taylor says this winter is much better than the last one.

[Dr Mike]

HH does not accurately reflect the tourist numbers---big groups are Russians, Middle Eastern and a new group Mainland Chinese.
In time they will come to HH, the increasing number of 4-5 star hotels and Spas will attract them.

[Super Joe]

Cookmanchef & Dr.Mike seem to be on the right track re: other nations emerging as the prominent visitors, while Europe, N.America etc are still struggle with our economies. The reports below seem to indicate as much, as well as pointing to where some of the increased numbers are coming from...and going too. Don't think Hua Hin saw much of a change overall from some of the data on the TAT websites, seems from many reports that Samui and Phuket saw big increases due to people bypassing Bangkok after the problems starting, which seems logical enough.

But a couple of things with the local Asian tourists like Chinese, Malaysians, Singaporeans, Indonesia etc, is 1) they don't neccessarily jump out as visitors (the 30 odd Chinese pensioners bound together with a bit of string excluded obviously), plus they probably hang out at different places to Westerners, so again not so noticeable. And 2), visitors from neighbouring countries stay on average far less days than long haul tourists, remember seeing something along the lines of the total average stay duration being 9 days, Europeans/N.American's were around 11 days, but Malaysian's 3 or 4 days, or summit daft. So you might be better off with 10 million visitors rather than 15 million, if you know what I mean.


Samui article extracts from Aug. '10:
The number of visitors increased by 19% in the first half of 2010 compared with 2009. With a 21% increase in international flights from 2009.


Global Travel Industry News article Oct. '10:
Thai–China Travel Association: Political situation caused Chinese tourists to avoid Bangkok and Pattaya, but travel to Samui & Phuket instead. The two have seen visitors more than double compared to that of last year. Chartered flights have also gone up to 60 flights a week, from 20 per week last year.



Phuket press article from Dec. '10:
Tourist numbers have risen dramatically this year, well over a million from the top 15 nations makes an increase of 56% year-on-year arriving before October 1. Indonesia's visitor numbers increased by 314%, China up 240%, Russia up 157%, Australia up 49% and India up 62%.


SJ

[margaretcarnes]

HH does not accurately reflect the tourist numbers---big groups are Russians, Middle Eastern and a new group Mainland Chinese.
In time they will come to HH, the increasing number of 4-5 star hotels and Spas will attract them.

I certainly noticed an increased number of middle-eastern visitors in HH last October to December against 2 years previously. Same in Bangkok but more so. Plenty of 'other Asian' tourists in HH as well as elsewhere.
It was difficult to avoid the flowing robes on Sukhumvit in particular, and one manicurist in the Ambassador corridor told me that her best customers now are middle eastern.
Surely tourist numbers though are based on more than 4/5 star hotel occupancy? For a start all hotels are required to take copies of passports - and they ARE checked by police. More relevant though are the numbers passing through immigration at Swampy. Alien cards recorded - photographed on entry. Even the land border crossing points are computerised now. That still doesn't prevent 'jiggling' of stats of course, but the info is there if the TOT wants to use it accurately.

BTW Pete mentions expats returning to the UK from Spain and Greece. This has been going on for 2 or 3 years now in the case of Spain, where some property deals have gone pear shaped due to lax land and planning regs - plus of course the ongoing poor pound/euro exchange rate. Greece meanwhile is just in a total mess, and there are other EU related messes like Malta where inflation has apparently gone through the roof. For UK tourists Europe often isn't a value for money option any more.

[Acadian450]

I was there in 2010 and belive me I want to be there in 2011!

[Super Joe]

Here's some info from the TAT on what people were discussing about the emergence of new visitor markets, and the slowing of other due to global recession etc...


The details of visitor arrival trends in January – November 2010:

EAST ASIA: Arrivals grew by 15.14% to 7.17 million. Arrivals from Malaysia, China, and Korea were up strongly though arrivals from Japan have slightly declined. Overall growth from the region is expected to remain strong, especially to popular Thai beach resorts.

EUROPE: Arrivals grew by 8.15% to 3.8 million. Countries that reported higher than 5% growth were Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Russia, and Eastern Europe. Markets that did not do so well are UK, Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, Finland, and Belgium due to poor economic conditions.

THE AMERICAS: Arrivals grew by a fractional 0.18% to 758,902 due to the economic conditions. The main market, the US, declined by -1.40% to 549,722. Arrivals from Canada were down -0.92%. However, arrivals from Brazil returned to strong positive growth (16.76%).

SOUTH ASIA: Arrivals surged by a strong 22.78% to 903,663 with all markets doing well, except Pakistan which has been affected by flooding and domestic political issues. India, however, has become a primary market with arrivals up by 26.31% to 690,374, making it the region’s fastest growing market.

SJ