News Forum - TAT 80% revenue recovery plan: get travellers to spend double

[Thommo]

2 hours ago, Thaiger said:

While the Tourism Authority of Thailand admits the revenue figures for 2021 are grim and likely won’t improve monumentally in the final quarter, they still have a rosy outlook on the tourism market rebounding over the next few years. The TAT is estimating that by 2023 tourism revenue will have recovered to 80% of the huge numbers seen at its peak in 2019. They plan on making up revenue loss from fewer people coming by attracting wealthier travellers and getting tourists to spend more in Thailand. In 2020, before Covid-19 fully took hold, 6.7 million travellers journeyed to Thailand. This […]

The post TAT 80% revenue recovery plan: get travellers to spend double appeared first on Thaiger News.

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Although I am living and working in Thailand, my reaction would me once travelling is open I would head to Phil or Bali or vietnam if i was still back in Oz.  What are these guys smoking?

[King Cotton]

25 minutes ago, Paco said:

No worry at the airport you can ask the tax back

You can ask, maybe. Whether you'll get is another matter.

[Khunmark]

Hey, Rocky watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat……….

[RobMuir]

2 hours ago, Stonker said:

I never thought I'd say it, but @RobMuir is right

What do you mean? I thought we were mates. 

Glad you see through it also. I read a Thai version of this story. It appears the Bangkok Post also wound up what was really meant, and then TT took it up a notch. Now the peanut gallery have taken it a step further and this will go down in forum history as some sort of fact, which will be repeated over and over.

 

Warn regards

Your old mate Rob. 

[Paco]

3 hours ago, King Cotton said:

You can ask, maybe. Whether you'll get is another matter.

They probably will be discounting the 500 baht airport tax from what you get back

[DiJoDavO]

Bringing this out in public is definitely a great way to keep tourists away. Saying such stuff will eventually backfire into getting closer to 0 THB because with news like this no one will want to come. 

[JamesR]

I bet all the expats living on their meagre pensions in Thailand just had a massive sigh of relief, they might have thought doubling their daily spend of 200 baht a day might have bankrupted them but they realised with great relief it only applies to tourists. 

The Thai medical system is happy as it has avoided having to deal with the old buggers jumping out of 10th floor condo balconies.  

Edited October 8, 2021 by JamesR
typo

[Del_SoL]

Oh these sweet dreams about stupid farangs money.........

[AlexPTY]

Give me a reason and I will 

[LuckyStrike]

Unionize the jet ski scammers and taxi scammers.

[Bob20]

4 minutes ago, AlexPTY said:

Give me a reason and I will 

Two French girls coming through Phuket, arriving in CM asked me where the night market was. Well, they were in the right street, it's just deserted for the last months. They've been bored stiff and not been able to do anything they saw in the tourist brochures. You can't even spend money if you wanted to!

That's a great advert and another two that won't return.

Opening up... with nothing to do unless you want to visit temples and big shopping centers. And when the sun goes down, it's totally dead.

Oh, and you can get a foot massage, all day long, when you're not tired from doing nothing!

[HolyCowCm]

7 hours ago, JohninDubin said:

I can almost concur with @Soidogas I read through this article, about being lost for words. I did keep saying to myself, "How is it that TAT even exists when this is the intellect being displayed by it's leadership"?

I consider myself reasonably well heeled. I'm a four week millionaire with a 10k a day habit plus travel and accommodation. So to double my spend, I have to become an 8 week millionaire, or spend 20k a day for two weeks. Hmmm? I presume that most visitors to TH are "time poor" and can only manage two weeks a year. My knowledge of two week millionaires, is that most lead a frugal life, and spend 50 weeks a year, solidly saving for the next trip. How are you going to get that particular cohort to double their spend? I am not sure, but I would guess that they make up a significant number of visitors to TH. 

It is difficult not to conclude that there are those in TAT, who think that Farangs have money trees growing on every street.

But then of course, if the plan is to double prices for tourists (I would not rule out such stupidity), why would the "millionaires", not divert to Phils or Cam? 

Of course one certain way of getting tourists to spend double, is to devalue the THB by 50% and then double the price of everything within TH. With such an idea, I am half-expecting to get a job offer to take over the running of TAT.

I used to spend for what I wanted to have fun here. Didn't' care. Sometimes 10k or more and sometimes 3-5k or on a day burnt out 2 k with my hotel stay or rented room. But this is back in the day of a 24 hour country of having fun and I would do it again if we could revert to it again like it was once upon a time.. So, my question to you, is where are you going to spend that kind of money? Is 3000bht of that on hotels or on girl drinks or on high end hotel dinners? Please elaborate as yes. I do agree money can run out fast here, but no man is not absent to have extra fun pricing. Or a foreign woman as that goes. 

[JamesE]

5 hours ago, Khunmark said:

Hey, Rocky watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat……….

Oops... Wrong hat.

[JamesE]

I've found the best way to read The Thaiger's articles is to scroll to the bottom and click through to the link of the real story, in this case the BKK Post: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2194271/tat-maps-out-new-targets-for-tourism

My takeaways:

1) TITAT. Anything with a number attached to it means nothing. If they ever predict anything it will be an "even a broken clock is right twice a day" scenario.

2) A large fraction of their tourism rebound is based on domestic stimulus programs one of which is subsidized. So if the government is paying for domestic travel how does that increase anything except marginally?

3) TAT is scared spitless. They know nothing is working and, given the situation in Thailand, nothing is going to work, including a full reopening. Given market realities where even a foreigner can book hotels at 1/3 the 2019 price, expecting a doubling per person is recklessly optimistic. But TAT is required to be optimistic, even at the cost of being wrong.

[EdwardV]

“sustainable and eco-friendly tourism “ - problem is that type of tourism is already a mature business around the world. worse yet it’s a boutique business model. TAT is swimming upstream with this idea. Good luck with that. 

[Marc26]

44 minutes ago, HolyCowCm said:

I used to spend for what I wanted to have fun here. Didn't' care. Sometimes 10k or more and sometimes 3-5k or on a day burnt out 2 k with my hotel stay or rented room. But this is back in the day of a 24 hour country of having fun and I would do it again if we could revert to it again like it was once upon a time.. So, my question to you, is where are you going to spend that kind of money? Is 3000bht of that on hotels or on girl drinks or on high end hotel dinners? Please elaborate as yes. I do agree money can run out fast here, but no man is not absent to have extra fun pricing. Or a foreign woman as that goes. 

You can spend that money easy

 

Hotel 5-8k/night 

Dinner 3-5k/night

 

Hotel pool bill 3-4k/day

 

Wife shopping, more like 1 or 2x per trip, spends anywhere from 3k-10k

 

If you have kids, more 

 

Very easy to go from spending money in the bars to money in other places 

[Bob20]

16 minutes ago, JamesE said:

I've found the best way to read The Thaiger's articles is to scroll to the bottom and click through to the link of the real story, in this case the BKK Post: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2194271/tat-maps-out-new-targets-for-tourism

My takeaways:

1) TITAT. Anything with a number attached to it means nothing. If they ever predict anything it will be an "even a broken clock is right twice a day" scenario.

2) A large fraction of their tourism rebound is based on domestic stimulus programs one of which is subsidized. So if the government is paying for domestic travel how does that increase anything except marginally?

3) TAT is scared spitless. They know nothing is working and, given the situation in Thailand, nothing is going to work, including a full reopening. Given market realities where even a foreigner can book hotels at 1/3 the 2019 price, expecting a doubling per person is recklessly optimistic. But TAT is required to be optimistic, even at the cost of being wrong.

Great strategy

But when I see TAT in an article I go straight for a tissue

[HolyCowCm]

3 minutes ago, Marc26 said:

You can spend that money easy

Hotel 5-8k/night 

Dinner 3-5k/night

Hotel pool bill 3-4k/day

Wife shopping, more like 1 or 2x per trip, spends anywhere from 3k-10k

If you have kids, more 

Very easy to go from spending money in the bars to money in other places 

Actually not me thank you. And I have an excellent time of living like a OMG happy person. Too very easy. for me street food or hotel food, but then I am not pretentious. .. 

[Marc26]

26 minutes ago, HolyCowCm said:

Actually not me thank you. And I have an excellent time of living like a OMG happy person. Too very easy. for me street food or hotel food, but then I am not pretentious. .. 

Street food for breakfast and lunch( or food by the hotel pool)

 

And a nice western restaurant for dinner 

[JackIsAGoodBoy]

To the contrary, Thailand will become at best a cheap touristy destination for the low income Chinese with packet tours. The interest towards Thailand in the West is waning, nothing like it was 10-15 years ago.

[JohninDublin]

2 hours ago, HolyCowCm said:

I used to spend for what I wanted to have fun here. Didn't' care. Sometimes 10k or more and sometimes 3-5k or on a day burnt out 2 k with my hotel stay or rented room. But this is back in the day of a 24 hour country of having fun and I would do it again if we could revert to it again like it was once upon a time.. So, my question to you, is where are you going to spend that kind of money? Is 3000bht of that on hotels or on girl drinks or on high end hotel dinners? Please elaborate as yes. I do agree money can run out fast here, but no man is not absent to have extra fun pricing. Or a foreign woman as that goes. 

I think the answer to your question is that right now, you can't spend that sort of money short of throwing it away. But I do expect life to return to normal eventually. 

[JamesE]

2 hours ago, JohninDubin said:

I think the answer to your question is that right now, you can't spend that sort of money short of throwing it away. But I do expect life to return to normal eventually. 

The question is: What is normal? Whenever there is a major disruption to any society - war, famine, plague, new technology - "normal" evolves to something else. Whether that's global urbanization as farms mechanized, the redistribution of jobs due to globalization, or a future that includes COVID precautions that were never needed before; the end result is normal. Just not what used to be normal.

The TAT - back to the topic - is struggling with this. On one hand they're an organization founded on the assumption that if you blow enough sunshine, your dreams will come true. On the other hand, they realize that the old way wasn't sustainable in any way, shape, or form. The environment was paying the price and many of the things that attracted all those tourists in the first place had lost much of their appeal. Maya Bay, anyone? The Grand Palace in January? So TAT is keeping the goal the same: lots of money, but changing how that money will be achieved: "quality tourists". The subtext is that Thailand wants half the number of tourists it used to have but for them to spend twice as much. The problem with coming right out and saying this is that half the number of people require half the number of hotel rooms, meals, s#!t-shops, bars, rentals, etc, etc, etc. That message would never fly, so they stick with unicorns farting rainbows just so nobody ever asks "How?".

[DWiener]

19 hours ago, Bob20 said:

TAT for comedic value, I've run out of tissues again

Yeah I'm confused - is TAT a real organisation? It seems like a sketch from some English comedy show like Fawlty Towers or The Fast Show. Everything they say is farcical. It's like The Onion!

[Paulw]

Personally I think TAT should stop making posts like this, all it does is discourage anyone who is intelligent enough to understand the logic behind their post!!!

[HiuMak]

20 hours ago, Thaiger said:

While the Tourism Authority of Thailand admits the revenue figures for 2021 are grim and likely won’t improve monumentally in the final quarter, they still have a rosy outlook on the tourism market rebounding over the next few years. The TAT is estimating that by 2023 tourism revenue will have recovered to 80% of the huge numbers seen at its peak in 2019. They plan on making up revenue loss from fewer people coming by attracting wealthier travellers and getting tourists to spend more in Thailand. In 2020, before Covid-19 fully took hold, 6.7 million travellers journeyed to Thailand. This […]

The post TAT 80% revenue recovery plan: get travellers to spend double appeared first on Thaiger News.

Read the full story

No tourists is coming. Equalize the dual pricing policy and TAT will get your revenue recovery.