Chinese More Important Than Western Tourists

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Jun

Re: Chinese More Important Than Western Tourists

Post by Jun »

It is fairly obvious that China is where the tourism growth is.

However, the survey is based volume of tourists and expenditure per day. The one other factor affecting tourism income is duration of holiday, since total spend = volume of tourists x spend per day x number of days.
My guess is European visitors would have longer trips, since your typical European country has a generous holiday allowance and as it's a long flight, it makes sense to stay for longer. People on longer holidays will spend more in total, but also can figure out how to get value for money.

Another factor is when the people arrive. If a country has a high proportion of the population taking fixed holidays, then numbers will be high around, for example, Chinese New Year or Japan Golden Week. To fill hotels the rest of the time, I guess they want a diversity of visitors AND people who get flexible holidays.

Also, I do wonder about the accuracy of the data. 3.7% of tourists apparently come from Vietnam. If people are intending to work illegally, they still have to put something on the immigration form and can hardly put employment down, if it is illegal employment.
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Re: Chinese More Important Than Western Tourists

Post by Dodger »

Jun wrote: Sat Apr 27, 2019 6:23 pm Also, I do wonder about the accuracy of the data. 3.7% of tourists apparently come from Vietnam. If people are intending to work illegally, they still have to put something on the immigration form and can hardly put employment down, if it is illegal employment
Vietnamese tourists were covered under the provisions of the Visa Exemption Rule and Bilateral Agreement that Thailand passed back in 2016 where only a passport is needed for a 30 day stay. Regardless if they are entering Thailand via an international airport or entering through a land border checkpoint an "Arrival Card" has to be processed. Based on this, I have always assumed that the numbers TAT uses to count to number of tourists from any given country comes directly from the "Arrival Cards".

If a Vietnamese person uses his passport to gain entry as a tourist and ends up working illegally and overstays (>30 days) then that's a horse of a different color and a matter for the police and immigration, but the numbers reported by TAT, using the data it collects from the "Arrival Cards" would still be valid.

Now, having said all this wonderful stuff, the systems the Thais use for collecting and consolidating data, and the competency of the people using these systems, results in data having the accuracy as a drunk Irishman's dart toss.
Jun

Re: Chinese More Important Than Western Tourists

Post by Jun »

Dodger wrote: Sun Apr 28, 2019 9:44 am If a Vietnamese person uses his passport to gain entry as a tourist and ends up working illegally and overstays (>30 days) then that's a horse of a different color and a matter for the police and immigration, but the numbers reported by TAT, using the data it collects from the "Arrival Cards" would still be valid.
If our hypothetical Vietnamese visitor does monthly Visa runs, then I presume he may shows up as 10 or 11 tourists per year. Incidentally, I only picked Vietnam as they have a significant number of visitors according to the pie chart.
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Re: Chinese More Important Than Western Tourists

Post by Dodger »

Jun wrote: Sun Apr 28, 2019 4:04 pmIf our hypothetical Vietnamese visitor does monthly Visa runs, then I presume he may shows up as 10 or 11 tourists per year.
From what I understand the Visa Exemption provisions only allow two tourist visits per year if entering Thailand by land or sea. There is apparently no limit for entries by air.

To your point, I guess anyone (including the Vietnamese) could be counted multiple times as tourists if they in fact were entering Thailand as tourists multiple times within the calendar year. One exception to this I guess would be if TAT had a database that could filter return visitors, but I highly doubt that. The higher the numbers the better for TAT.

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