News Forum - TAT predicts 500,000 travellers before 2022, 133,000 arrived so far

[Thaiger]

After 1 month of Thailand’s reopening, the Kingdom saw over 133,000 arrivals total from countries around the world, and the Tourism Authority of Thailand is confident that the goal of 500,000 international travellers will be met, despite the new Omicron variant of Covid-19 that has seen countries scrambling to limit or block travel from at-risk countries. In the month of November, a total of 133,061 international travellers landed in Thailand and the lion’s share of those travellers entered under the Test & Go scheme that allows vaccinated travellers from 63 countries to enter Thailand without quarantine except for a brief […]

The story TAT predicts 500,000 travellers before 2022, 133,000 arrived so far as seen on Thaiger News.

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[JohninDublin]

Interesting looking at the "infection rates league table" that the top 3 are Russia and the UK which reflects what is happening in Europe, and UAE which has the highest reported vax rate on the planet.

Whereas there is nothing to suggest that we should be surprised at the first two countries, on the face of it, UAE should be a surprise. However, if I recall, the first person detected to be infected in the Phuket Sandbox, was an Emirati, who had been given Sinovax. Makes me wonder how many more red flags that Sinovax is going to thrown up?

[JohninDublin]

Anyone know what happened to the 1 mill originally predicted by TAT for the same time span?

[Cabra]

That's some creative math... 

[Jason]

Totally Amazing Thailand are at it again! I'm just glad these numnuts aren't picking my lotto numbers. Then Prayut comes out with the "lockdown trigger finger". Which just goes to show generals aren't travel experts.

[Dedinbed]

56 minutes ago, Thaiger said:

133,000 arrivals

 

57 minutes ago, Thaiger said:

, a total of 133,061 international travellers landed in Thailand

Note avoidance of the word Tourist's .. and vid's of the airport put up on Y T including the most recent of 2 days ago don't suggest anything like that number .. 

[TheDirtyDurian]

So about 4k a day in November, now they expecting 12k a day in December!

,

[Malc-Thai]

29 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

Anyone know what happened to the 1 mill originally predicted by TAT for the same time span?

Yes they downgraded it to 750,000

[Paco]

can someone place picture of the ' Person' at TAT that makes these insane predictions, please do post it, to make a fool out of him or her

[JohninDublin]

3 minutes ago, Dedinbed said:

Note avoidance of the word Tourist's .. and vid's of the airport put up on Y T including the most recent of 2 days ago don't suggest anything like that number .. 

I get your point, but I believe that all arrivals in TH are classed as tourists, and that this is common practice throughout many countries, because digging into the data can be difficult. For example if a Thai marries Farang and she comes home on a holiday, it seems correct to me to count her as a tourist.

There are plenty of comments about the fact that the bulk of those arriving in the Phuket sandbox are Thais, but these are people who returned home for a holiday, and were no longer domiciled in TH, and would be leaving once they have had their holiday. Sounds like under the circumstances, these are really tourists.

[JohninDublin]

13 minutes ago, TheDirtyDurian said:

So about 4k a day in November, now they expecting 12k a day in December!

,

That figure does seem feasible providing there are no restrictions placed on them returning to their own countries for (eg) Omicron variant. The problem has been for many avoiding rigid quarantine in TH, and then again on their return.

[Griff1315]

5 minutes ago, Paco said:

can someone place picture of the ' Person' at TAT that makes these insane predictions, please do post it, to make a fool out of him or her

He may be a fool but a very wealthy one. He uses his specially adapted calculator to do his expenses claim every month..

[NCC1701A]

i have to say there is a marked increase of Caucasian people in Hua Hin. 

 

[TheDirtyDurian]

3 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

That figure does seem feasible providing there are no restrictions placed on them returning to their own countries for (eg) Omicron variant. The problem has been for many avoiding rigid quarantine in TH, and then again on their return.

I think too big a jump. Maybe 6k a day if no new restrictions due to Omicron. 

But hey, we're all guessing at the end of the day!

Just like T(w)AT

[Malc-Thai]

13 minutes ago, Paco said:

can someone place picture of the ' Person' at TAT that makes these insane predictions, please do post it, to make a fool out of him or her

 

[Rain]

1 minute ago, NCC1701A said:

i have to say there is a marked increase of Caucasian people in Hua Hin. 

Shouldn't be a problem if they keep to their Farang Ghetti - 

[Malc-Thai]

12 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

I get your point, but I believe that all arrivals in TH are classed as tourists, and that this is common practice throughout many countries, because digging into the data can be difficult. For example if a Thai marries Farang and she comes home on a holiday, it seems correct to me to count her as a tourist.

There are plenty of comments about the fact that the bulk of those arriving in the Phuket sandbox are Thais, but these are people who returned home for a holiday, and were no longer domiciled in TH, and would be leaving once they have had their holiday. Sounds like under the circumstances, these are really tourists.

So my friend that lives in the UK for 6 months with his thai wife,  then returns here with her to live the other 6 months becomes a tourist in both countries? 

[AussieBob]

19 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

I get your point, but I believe that all arrivals in TH are classed as tourists, and that this is common practice throughout many countries, because digging into the data can be difficult. For example if a Thai marries Farang and she comes home on a holiday, it seems correct to me to count her as a tourist.

There are plenty of comments about the fact that the bulk of those arriving in the Phuket sandbox are Thais, but these are people who returned home for a holiday, and were no longer domiciled in TH, and would be leaving once they have had their holiday. Sounds like under the circumstances, these are really tourists.

That is not the case in places like Australia that properly count tourists different from arrivals. Aussie citizens and residents, and people married to Aussie citizens or residents, are not counted as tourists.  Likewise people arriving for longer period (students, backpackers, working holidays, etc) are also not counted as a tourist.  Someone told me that it was anything over 12 weeks was considered not a tourist.

Thais coming home to Thailand are not tourists - nor are all the other categories. But if a Thai organisation has a job to increase tourists, then they will count everyone that comes into Thailand as a tourist - including the Red Bull Heir if he is ever found, and any members of the Myanmar Junta or CCP on a visit.

[JohninDublin]

19 minutes ago, TheDirtyDurian said:

I think too big a jump. Maybe 6k a day if no new restrictions due to Omicron. 

But hey, we're all guessing at the end of the day!

Just like T(w)AT

You are right: We are all guessing. 

But we have a cold winter coming up in Europe, and people have extended holidays to look forward to as well as pent up demand having spent nearly two years in lockdown. I could be wrong, but that is why I think it's feasible. 12k would be about 8% of regular demand for December.

[JohninDublin]

22 minutes ago, Malc-Thai said:

So my friend that lives in the UK for 6 months with his thai wife,  then returns here with her to live the other 6 months becomes a tourist in both countries? 

Please don't try to put words in my mouth. If you are looking at millions of events, there will always be those that don't fit neatly into an "either/or" situation. The case you cite, is a very good example of why most countries count arrivals rather than trying to separate arrivals from tourists.

[Somchai]

500 000 arrivals in 2021 is exactly 1.2% of the 40 million arrivals in 2019.

 

Many of them are returning Thais and long term expats.

 

 

[JohninDublin]

20 minutes ago, AussieBob said:

That is not the case in places like Australia that properly count tourists different from arrivals. Aussie citizens and residents, and people married to Aussie citizens or residents, are not counted as tourists.  Likewise people arriving for longer period (students, backpackers, working holidays, etc) are also not counted as a tourist.  Someone told me that it was anything over 12 weeks was considered not a tourist.

Thais coming home to Thailand are not tourists - nor are all the other categories. But if a Thai organisation has a job to increase tourists, then they will count everyone that comes into Thailand as a tourist - including the Red Bull Heir if he is ever found, and any members of the Myanmar Junta or CCP on a visit.

I don't doubt that OZ has the sophistication to compile better data than TH, but looking at the list of exemptions you cite, I am not sure that too many would use all or even many of those groups. Incidentally, there is a legal definition of "tourist" in the UK, being anyone that is visiting another town for a day or more other than for work, education or medical treatment.

Regardless, what we are talking about here is basically foreign tourism, and the UK definition would include someone travelling from BKK to Pattaya for a weekend, so that doesn't help. However, the health of a country's tourism can probably best be measured, by the number of arrivals at ports of entry. 

Just to correct something I said earlier, it is in the EU that arrivals from within the EU are all classed as tourists. The reason being that most arrivals there are from other EU countries, where Schengen removes the need for a dis-embarkation card, and thus it is impossible to count whether purpose of travel is business, pleasure etc. 

[Poolie]

I'm just trying to figure out why its important to the TT members...............

[AussieBob]

10 minutes ago, JohninDubin said:

I don't doubt that OZ has the sophistication to compile better data than TH, but looking at the list of exemptions you cite, I am not sure that too many would use all or even many of those groups. Incidentally, there is a legal definition of "tourist" in the UK, being anyone that is visiting another town for a day or more other than for work, education or medical treatment.

Regardless, what we are talking about here is basically foreign tourism, and the UK definition would include someone travelling from BKK to Pattaya for a weekend, so that doesn't help. However, the health of a country's tourism can probably best be measured, by the number of arrivals at ports of entry. 

Just to correct something I said earlier, it is in the EU that arrivals from within the EU are all classed as tourists. The reason being that most arrivals there are from other EU countries, where Schengen removes the need for a dis-embarkation card, and thus it is impossible to count whether purpose of travel is business, pleasure etc. 

Thailand should count the tourist visas - not the arrivals - how about that then??  So many other ways too - but for once I agree with Poolie - whatever.

[Stonker]

2 hours ago, JohninDubin said:

UAE should be a surprise. However, if I recall, the first person detected to be infected in the Phuket Sandbox, was an Emirati, who had been given Sinovax. Makes me wonder how many more red flags that Sinovax is going to thrown up?

Most in the UAE had Sinopharm, actually, not Sinovac - initially only Sinopharm was available before they bought Pfizer.

Since August the UAE have mandated three doses of Sinopharm, as two were found to be ineffective with some developing no antibodies at all after two.

... and Sinopharm's supposed to be around 50% better than Sinovac ...