The Thai tourist industry is abuzz with rumors that the Chinese authorities will allow tour groups to Thailand as early as Golden Week, an October holiday and festivity. Vichit Prakobgosol, vice-president of the Tourism Council of Thailand, said the rumors were strong but needed the formal assent of the Chinese Communist Party’s national congress.
However, there is little chance this year of Chinese arrivals amounting to 800,000 or more per month as in the pre-pandemic era. The tour groups are likely to be closely monitored by Beijing to ensure that Chinese tourists do not bring back Covid with them alongside their duty-free bags.
Pattaya entrepreneurs are not getting carried by the prospect of a renewed tourist avalanche. A staff member at Tiffany’s, the leading transvestite cabaret in the resort, said all mass entertainment venues depended on Chinese customers to make a profit. She said she saw “no prospect this year of thrice-nightly shows seven days a week.”
Most Chinese tour groups are zero-sum vacationers, that is they pay for the entire trip in China in advance of arrival. It has long been a bone of contention that only favored hotels, restaurants, retail units and entertainment venues benefitted from the mass influx. Although zero-sum holidays attracted a lot of hostile publicity in Pattaya in the past, no concrete steps have been taken to open the overall market to a fairer playing field.
One limiting factor is the future of immigration policy. The Thai authorities have not agreed to dismantle the Test and Go entry bureaucracy, the need for some anti-Covid medical insurance nor the requirement to have some kind of post-arrival health test. Ken Roache, from Pacific International Tours, said he would be surprised if Thailand abolished all entry requirements on top of a passport and an airticket any time soon.
Most farang expats ponder the possible resurge of Chinese tourism with well-known apathy. The prospect of the return of hundreds of tour buses clogging the Pattaya highways, whilst long queues form at popular retail outlets or ferry transit points, are not causes for celebration in most western eyes.
So far in 2022, the biggest numbers of international tourists to Thailand have been Indians from the sub-continent following quasi-travel bubble deals with several airlines. Around 500,000 Indian tourists are expected in Thailand this year, generating 24 billion baht. Niche markets such as Indian weddings and a boom in cargo service have also contributed to the economic uptake. Meanwhile, the Russian war in Ukraine has jeopardized European tourism and made British and European Union nationals nervous of long-distance travel.
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