News Forum - Chiang Mai tourism almost exclusively domestic for now

[Thaiger]

With Chiang Mai currently experiencing the fourth-highest daily infections in the country – 357 people in today’s figures – it’s not surprising that international tourism has hardly bounced back since the reopening of Thailand 2 weeks ago. The effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the province has been estimated to have lost tourism revenue as high as 70 billion baht and Chiang Mai is hoping that the reopening of the country will start to bring some relief sooner rather than later. While it wasn’t much, the Chiang Mai Tourism Council looks at the arrival of a chartered golf tourism flight […]

The story Chiang Mai tourism almost exclusively domestic for now as seen on Thaiger News.

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[mickkotlarski]

With the restrictions and state of the pandemic no wonder. Give it time.

[HolyCowCm]

These daily numbers of incoming people are hard to believe. But there are way way way too many cars from Bangkok and way way way too many covid outbreaks now. But Bangkok people have been sneaking in here for a few to several noticeable months via  the back roads already. It would seem to reason that these are the clowns that helped maximize the spread while CM folk were and are still quite vulnerable. I would like to directly put the blame on another group but apparently it is illegal to criticize them now. So what I can say is let’s hope all the CCP and ones who did this have karma come back their way which would make h e l l look like a paradise. 

[ThaiEyes]

I doubt the people had to sneak into Chiang Mai from Bangkok. A few weeks ago, a Thai friend of mine drove from Bangkok to Chiang Mai and said while she saw what looked like roadblocks along the way, nobody was being stopped. Enforcement is pretty lax as always

[Jason]

Had they have given it proper vaccination priority, maybe it would be a different story! So sad for the people of CM

[Thommo]

7 hours ago, ThaiEyes said:

I doubt the people had to sneak into Chiang Mai from Bangkok. A few weeks ago, a Thai friend of mine drove from Bangkok to Chiang Mai and said while she saw what looked like roadblocks along the way, nobody was being stopped. Enforcement is pretty lax as always

 

7 hours ago, ThaiEyes said:

I doubt the people had to sneak into Chiang Mai from Bangkok. A few weeks ago, a Thai friend of mine drove from Bangkok to Chiang Mai and said while she saw what looked like roadblocks along the way, nobody was being stopped. Enforcement is pretty lax as always

I rode there  about 6 weeks ago from bkk   no checkpoints   did need to show proof of vac when checking into hotels

[Pompies]

Domestic tourism is hugely less remunerative than international. Thais stay with friends & family, shop in markets and supermarkets and generally stay at their lodgings. So hotels, restaurants, walking streets etc gain much less from a domestic visitor. Yes we got 83 Koreans but there is suspicious silence about the second flight from Incheon! So essentially CM is going to remain a graveyard. All the bars & pubs that were preparing for December 1 have stopped preparations, staff who should have returned to work remain unemployed and hosptals are overflowing with new Covid cases. A great place to come for festivities. Not!

[KaptainRob]

People are coming north from all over the south, Bangkok, Chonburi, Hua Hin and all parts in between.

Of today's 14 scheduled arrivals, if full @ 150pax per flight that would be 2,100 total arrivals and so I'd guess that is how the numbers are being calculated.  I seriously doubt they'd achieve much more than 50% load factor spread across early morning (0600 ex BKK) to almost midnight arrival times.  

8 of those flights depart BKK and were likely scheduled to carry International arrivals.  One is from Phuket and the remaining 5 out of DMK would most probably carry a majority of domestic pax.  I could imagine a total pax arrival of up to 1,000 per day especially with some of the low base fares being offered.

[Jason]

We all know how good they are with numbers.....

[HolyCowCm]

1 hour ago, KaptainRob said:

People are coming north from all over the south, Bangkok, Chonburi, Hua Hin and all parts in between.

Of today's 14 scheduled arrivals, if full @ 150pax per flight that would be 2,100 total arrivals and so I'd guess that is how the numbers are being calculated.  I seriously doubt they'd achieve much more than 50% load factor spread across early morning (0600 ex BKK) to almost midnight arrival times.  

8 of those flights depart BKK and were likely scheduled to carry International arrivals.  One is from Phuket and the remaining 5 out of DMK would most probably carry a majority of domestic pax.  I could imagine a total pax arrival of up to 1,000 per day especially with some of the low base fares being offered.

I can see more starting to come up here last week and this week because of the colder wonderful weather and Loy Krathong being pushed. I can maybe agree with your number at a best case scenario for now, and maybe a slight increase in passengers starting this week and as the weather flipped to the cooler season. But as I go out everyday either to the market or exercising as I travel a distance by bike, I have not seen anything relevant to back up their numbers. Only big change I have seen are the Loy Krathong decorations have been pushed out everywhere. Plainly it is alarming and stupid until CM is vaccinated more as it is plainly out of control, and, there is a huge hold up still on the Moderna. All those first doses and BKK Hospital only will jab a total of 308 end of today and Lanna Hospital was the big winner of the Thongburi group. Something seems fishy on the 5.6k that arrived on the 1rst and where it went or what is being done with it. But hey, TIT and even the illustrious upscale elite Health minister will be able to get jab #4 of AZ so he can attend a Swiss health meeting. As he is not a real doctor, and I bet he has not even ever gave someone a shot, maybe he can talk about engineering of how much the Moto GP track and the new gov building cost to make there. 

 

[HolyCowCm]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

We all know how good they are with numbers.....

The word fudge comes to mind.

[KaptainRob]

20 minutes ago, HolyCowCm said:

The word fudge comes to mind.

The numbers quoted are mainly BS, and domestic pax arrivals are mostly those with family or 2nd homes in the province, they are not big spending 'tourists'. 

[PapayaBokBok]

Lets see if they roll out the red carpet and give me the key to the city when I arrive next week

as a triple vaxxed dirty falang that is...

[Mudshark]

I did see a little open sided van with a women talking by mic, to ten or so people yesterday (Sunday) on the west side of the moat. I nearly fell off my bike. However I assume it was domestic tourists. Still it was a rather nice to see. Otherwise the town is as dead as ever.

A number of units on my floor  are owned by people who work in Bangkok. They have come up on occasion all through the pandemic. Yet it seems their visits are getting farther apart, fewer in number, and that before the recent Chiang Mai surge. Interesting to see if they come up for Loy Khratong. 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2021 by Mudshark

[HolyCowCm]

5 minutes ago, KaptainRob said:

The numbers quoted are mainly BS, and domestic pax arrivals are mostly those with family or 2nd homes in the province, they are not big spending 'tourists'. 

That is the same I think about a big majority of these high end Bangkok vehicles here. They have a second home or staying at a high end resort, and for the ones with cheaper smaller cars are the many coming back to their parents for a visit stay. Still, way way too many of them for my liking as we are still so so vulnerable here. On the other note, these Bangkok drivers are a huge danger driving on the roads. and if you really look it seems 2/3 out 6/7 cars are Bangkok.

BS means Big Shot?  

 

[Griff1315]

12 minutes ago, PapayaBokBok said:

Lets see if they roll out the red carpet and give me the key to the city when I arrive next week

as a triple vaxxed dirty falang that is...

If they gave you a key to every open business you wouldn't have any trouble carrying them...

[HolyCowCm]

30 minutes ago, PapayaBokBok said:

Lets see if they roll out the red carpet and give me the key to the city when I arrive next week

as a triple vaxxed dirty falang that is...

Only if you carry hand sanitizer. 

[PapayaBokBok]

9 minutes ago, HolyCowCm said:

Only if you carry hand sanitizer. 

packed today....same bottle that I left Cm with!

[Bob20]

It's going really well. Keep 'm coming...

[PGraham]

My wife watches a group/website on which Thai Doctors practicing in CM report on their daily activities & observations....

She then updates me...

The offshoot is this....They are indicating that the case numbers are seriously under reported - that the actual numbers are closer to 1100 or more per day, backing up their data with hospital bed space reports....Roughly 3x more than is being reported....

Add the uncontrolled influx and it's teetering on a disaster....

[ThaiEyes]

On 11/15/2021 at 10:22 AM, HolyCowCm said:

That is the same I think about a big majority of these high end Bangkok vehicles here. They have a second home or staying at a high end resort, and for the ones with cheaper smaller cars are the many coming back to their parents for a visit stay. Still, way way too many of them for my liking as we are still so so vulnerable here. On the other note, these Bangkok drivers are a huge danger driving on the roads. and if you really look it seems 2/3 out 6/7 cars are Bangkok.

BS means Big Shot?  

Agreed, but the driving part I’m not sure of. It seems the Chiang Mai drivers are just as dangerous. Though maybe we should build a wall around the city to keep them out? Oh wait, we already have a wall around the (old) city…

[HolyCowCm]

1 hour ago, ThaiEyes said:

Agreed, but the driving part I’m not sure of. It seems the Chiang Mai drivers are just as dangerous. Though maybe we should build a wall around the city to keep them out? Oh wait, we already have a wall around the (old) city…

I think it is a different type of driving. Bangkok idiots think they are privileged thinking they are special and need everyone to bow to them and give way so they can go first and do whatever they like, and they drive way way too fast. CM locals are safer, well except for Lamphun people that is. Nothing worse than them. If you put the average CM driver in Bangkok, then they become a danger driving there. You just cannot transplant either people to either city as it doesn't work.

[Stonker]

On 11/15/2021 at 11:28 AM, Bob20 said:

Fortunate for Chiang Mai that they have someone in charge of their contingency planning who knows what they're doing, even if others don' t.

They had the option of either filling up all the hospitals and ICUs with Covid patients, to the detriment and exclusion of all other (non-Covid) patients, which would also have needed major changes to many ICUs to accommodate the extra equipment required such as ventilators, or sending some patients out of province and converting an available facility to take patients if necessary, staffed from across a number of provinces.

Luckily for Chiang Mai, and for not only the Covid patients but all other patients, they went for the latter.

Other provinces, such as Phuket, were not so forward thinking and did the former.

[KaptainRob]

We may see a surge in cases as the weather cools off and southern visitors continue to arrive, but for now it's looking better, only 197 cases today >

[Thommo]

On 11/14/2021 at 9:39 PM, HolyCowCm said:

These daily numbers of incoming people are hard to believe. But there are way way way too many cars from Bangkok and way way way too many covid outbreaks now. But Bangkok people have been sneaking in here for a few to several noticeable months via  the back roads already. It would seem to reason that these are the clowns that helped maximize the spread while CM folk were and are still quite vulnerable. I would like to directly put the blame on another group but apparently it is illegal to criticize them now. So what I can say is let’s hope all the CCP and ones who did this have karma come back their way which would make h e l l look like a paradise. 

Dont need to "sneak in" bkk-cm by road did not require any back roads for me