Gaybutton wrote: ↑Mon Sep 09, 2019 8:08 am
Since when are "official" figures reliable?
I can't dispute what you see in the UK because I'm not there. But I know what I see for myself in Pattaya, what others tell me, and I know what shopkeepers tell me.
Having worked as a consultant for a national tourist organisation, I can affirm that some raw statistics are indeed sometimes massaged. However, in all the cases I witnessed, this was to persuade government leaders to agree either to come up with more cash or to a major change in marketing strategies.
The problem with those who doubt officially published figures is that actual tourism statistics are drawn from a wide variety of sources, then collated and fed to several international tourism bodies. There is thus virtually no reason why statistics should be massaged because these bodies do from time to time send representatives to check them. The main variations arise when looking at the basis on which certain groups of statistics are arrived. For example, one set of statistics issued by Thailand is based only from agents using the services of the Association of Thailand Travel Agents (ATTA). Inevitably this can only give a general view of inbound tourism and may well be skewed to lower spending visitors (my guess).
Unfortunately most of us see and therefore believe only what our eyes and those we talk to tell us. So we base opinions on what happens exclusively in our tiny part of a country. I have no doubt that in Pattaya most tourists from China appear to spend little but peanuts on cheap souvenirs. But then I see some I assume to be from that country in Paragon and Central Embassy walking out of top-end boutiques with several large shopping bags. In that category, Indians are now particularly evident. Some Chinese will, as Jun pointed out in an earlier post, regularly shop at Harrods in London. As most country's outbound tourism develops, it is inevitable that those on cheap package tours become balanced by those on more individually tailored tours and others who make their own arrangements. The latter groups tend to be far higher spenders.
As far as general in bound tourism to Thailand is concerned, numbers are certainly dropping. According to the ATTA (itself no real barometer of actual figures), so far in 2019, the only countries showing a rise are India, Vietnam, Taiwan, France, Ukraine and the USA. In percentage terms, the largest falls are in descending order
UK - 29.39%
Hong Kong - 19.33%
South Korea - 13.77%
China - 12.08%
Malaysia - 10.51
Indonesia - 9.85%
Japan - 8.22%
Germany - 7.77%
Russia - 6.91%
I cannot work out the fall in actual numbers from each country. In the last few years China and Malaysia have sent the most. So it's reasonable to expect the drop in their percentages represents the largest fall in numbers.
http://www.atta.or.th/?p=4019