Chinese tourists heading elsewhere – what did you expect?

Don Ross of ttrweekly.com reflects on the self-imposed, but unplanned, reduction to Thailand’s tourist numbers – principally Chinese tourist numbers. If there were growing calls to limit or better control the problems of too many tourists, lax Thai safety laws have done part of the job already. Don writes…

Just a few months back, the debate in Thailand focused on the threat of overtourism, a word we coined to explain how our destinations are at risk from over crowding.

We looked at travel forecasts and based on the more than 9 million Chinese tourists, who visited Thailand in 2017, the arithmetic suggested 2018 would push the total beyond 10 million.

Experts called for capacity caps at resorts and a concerted effort to cool the tourism temperature to counter the threat of “overtourism,” especially from China.

Tourism was accelerating almost out of control. Brakes should be applied experts warned, but no one dared to slam on the brakes. In the end, Thailand’s notorious security shortcomings stopped the Chinese travel boom in its tracks.

If we believe what tourism leaders and market snapshots tell us, Chinese tourists are going elsewhere and the exodus could cut travel by as much as 25% by year-end. It is probably more likely to downgrade to a conservative decline of 8 to 10%. However, even that could represent a million Chinese tourists who for various reasons decide Thailand is not a welcoming paradise any more.

Read the rest of the article HERE.