Guest fountainhall Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 The Bangkok Post today has a long article on the tourism figures for 2010. Numbers from China were up by 45% to 1.127 million, from South Korea 43% to .887 million, and from India 28% to .791 million. A staggering 57 million Chinese are expected to travel outside mainland China this year, and the TAT estimates that of these 1.3 million will come to Thailand. Why the increase should be less than half of that for 2010, it does not say. The numbers of Chinese tourists will continue to increase due to a variety of factors, said Vichit Prakobkosol, president of the Thai-Chinese Tourism Alliance Association. The first reason is that the overall economic situation in China is good (about 10% growth) and this enables people to travel outside the country. Secondly, Thailand is one of their favourite destinations because they consider the Kingdom good value for money, he said. Other attractions include the various activities lined up for the tourists and escaping to a warmer place during China's winter season. Vichit said the Chinese long holiday to celebrate the Lunar New Year next month (Feb 3) will bring thousands of Chinese to the country, especially Phuket. There will be an estimated 150 charter flights from China to the island during early of February. The figure is almost double the number of charter flights last year, he said. http://www.bangkokpost.com/travel/news/217812/thailand-eyes-its-share-of-ever-growing-number-of-chinese-tourists 150 charter flights in addition to regular services? Hope no-one is still looking for hotel rooms in Phuket early next month. Equally interesting - Korean pop singers travelled to Pattaya last week to film a TV game show. Called Idol Expedition Filming in Pattaya: New Year Special Episode, the show was shot during Jan 16-20 with a party theme and pool games involving several K-pop idols including 2PM, Super Junior, SHINee, Kara, Beast, U-Kiss and CN Blue. The show is 110-140 minutes long and will be on aired as a SBS special during the Lunar New Year. The exact date will be announced soon. Stand-by, Pattaya, for an invasion of Koreans. If the tourists look anything like the guys in Super Junior, I'll have to think about moving from Bangkok Quote
macaroni21 Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 Stand-by, Pattaya, for an invasion of Koreans. If the tourists look anything like the guys in Super Junior, I'll have to think about moving from Bangkok The world over, pop band groupies tend to be female of the screaming hysterical kind. You may wish to hold back on your relocation plans Quote
Guest fountainhall Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 The world over, pop band groupies tend to be female of the screaming hysterical kind. You may wish to hold back on your relocation plans You just ruined my evening Quote
Guest Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 Big Increases from Asian Countries, as expected. As we've been saying, it's almost inevitable that the proportion of Asian visitors to Thailand will increase. Global trade imbalances mean wealth is transferred to Asia, so the middle classes will want to go on holiday. I guess it's quite a short flight to escape from winter in China or Korea to Thailand also. Quote
pong Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 well, at least there is now some substance that all that moaning about low tourist nrs were part-sighted. Also be happy: nearly all those Chinese and well over 90% of those Koreans come in organised tourgroups. You wont come in their way. (But once I met an independent young Chinese backpacking tourist from Yunnan-he had walked all the 33 kms from airport to Pra nakorn-to save a 20 bt bus!). BTW: the flight to SEL/ICN takes well over 6 hrs. to PEK=Beijing only slightly less. Thai like to go to Korea-mainly influenced by endless TV-commercials but more by Korean pop-boy-bands, for SKIing-did anyone of you ever thought of that? Quote
