Thai tourism. It's gonna get worse before it gets better

Thailand lost their number 1 spot for tourism numbers in SE Asia for the first time since anyone bothered to track such a thing. The government and the various agencies such as TAT (tourism authority of Thailand) haven't been very vocal about this downturn in tourism, almost like a child that thinks that if it just ignores it, it will go away.

There are a TON of factors and actors involved as to how it is that this once, miles ahead of anyone else in the region champion of tourism ended up falling but I do know that I can see, I have eyes, and while some politician would probably explain away everything with various graphs and statistics, I can look around and see that things are not as good as they used to be.

There has been a big focus on places like Pattaya, Bangkok, and Phuket, but recently I ran into an article about how 90% of Chinese tourists have stopped coming to Chiang Mai and I believe it because I used to see it all the time and I do not now.

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I remember during Covid when there were zero tourists because everything was shut down and then Thailand was very much looking forward to opening things up with renewed vigor as soon as they were allowed to. Well that reset button on tourism never really activated because it is seemed stagnant ever since those days.

There is a lot of talk about the Thai Baht being "too strong" or something along those lines and how because of this it is cheaper to travel to Vietnam or Malaysia or I have ever heard that Japan is cheaper than here and I have a difficult time believing that. I do know one thing though, Thailand was ONCE a cheap and nice destination, then the nice-ness kind of went away, and then the cheap went away too... so what reason is there really to come here other than drugs and prostitution?

Ok, that is not very nice. Thailand still has some of the best looking beaches in the whole world but the thing is, back when I was merely a visitor here back in the late 2010's, it was possible to go to see these lovely beaches on a budget or even stay at some of them. Those budget options were all but completely eliminated and now everything is around what you would expect to pay for a hotel in the USA. I realize that not everyone is American but for me, part of the allure of Thailand all those years ago for me was the fact that I couldn't believe that I was staying within sight of something with such natural beauty for 20 or even $10 a night. If those options still exist they are not very prevalent and they used to be everywhere.

The past tourism season was really bad in Thailand and if the government is admitting that it was "pretty bad" then you can be guaranteed that it was actually very bad. I know a few people involved in the tourism industry here and most of them are just going to give up because it is now october and the rainy season waits for no government policy and we are in for a complete absence of tourists until probably mid December. For the companies that have already been suffering because of various reasons, they don't know how they are going to survive to the next season, or if the next season is even going to happen.

Something else that has been happening to Thailand is that the Chinese market was always considered a "guaranteed thing" to the point where government officials abused this demographic, subjecting them to overcrowded tour boats, diminished safety standards, and then had the gall to charge them a completely illegal "entry fee" of 1000 Baht or 500 Baht per person. I only know this because I was on a flight that happened to go through China and was one of the only non-Chinese person on the plane. They all had their cash ready, but i was just rushed on through. There was nothing legal about this, it was downright theft.

If they complained, they would find some reason to have a problem with their visa, and make them sit for hours or trump up some reason as to why they are not allowed into the country. I don't know the specifics but at some point this was cracked down on when the Chinese tourists started going somewhere else.

Now, the government, realizing that they likely cannot get the once-lucrative Chinese tourists back just yet, have tried to fill that void with Russian and Indian tourists only to discover that this brings with it some other unique problems as well. Look, I"m not trying to make this a racial thing at all, but there have been a ton of articles about how large groups of either one of these nationalities are something that the local tourism operators do not want.

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I do not know for sure, I don't really interact with tourists very much but I do know that the locals have very strong opinions about this and Thailand is not a part of the world where racism is forbidden. The above image is part of a video that went viral where Indian tourists were being accused of sleeping on the beach and discarding trash all over the place and sleeping there but later on it was determined that they were migrant workers and weren't even from India.

I have no idea what is real and what isn't because I know the Thai government would never allow the press to put anything out there that makes them appear as though they made a mistake.

I don't think it is entirely the government's fault but moreso the fault of greed. The areas that were popular with tourists were popular with tourists because they were cheap and beautiful, now they are just beautiful. The days of getting a bungalow on the beach like in the movie "The Beach" for a few bucks.. well that doesn't exist anymore. Everything is rather expensive resorts now.

Back in the day people would arrive with a 30-day stamp and then decide to just stay a lot longer and longer and eventually perhaps even live here just doing 30-day visa runs all the time. The government decided they didn't want that and have been messing with Visa rules for well, as long as I have lived here, making this more and more complicated or impossible even though these lower-end tourists are still putting money in the economy that otherwise wouldn't be there.

I believe in the end that Thailand got what they were asking for, even though they weren't really asking for it. It just isn't cheap here anymore and since it isn't really nice enough to be paying higher prices to come here, a large portion of the market has just decided to completely skip Thailand and head to other places.

I feel bad for the people of this country because 20% of the entire workforce in Thailand works in tourism and honestly, doesn't have any other options.

I hope they can change things back to the way that they were but honestly, I feel like the government here is far too arrogant to ever admit that they were wrong and reverse course.