What Stage does the Tourism Development in Thailand for the Mainland Chinese Market?

Well, the next question we are going to discuss is to be more specifically, looking at the tourists going to Thailand. As far as I know from the research data that about 50% of all the tourists going to Thailand are from mainland China. Do you think this kind of market segment should be the way it is or otherwise? Yes, now more Chinese tourists are visitors, They come more often. 40% are visitors, at this moment, they come to Thailand two or three times a year. Now rather than the tour group, the most sell stand are very good in terms of the local economy. They spend on the street.

The people especially in the winter, they love Chinese tourists, because they spend a lot and you can see from the statistics. Today, the Chinese tourists spend in Chiang Mai more than 20% on food, not only on food; only 10% for the western tourists. They love Thai food. Yes, they love Thai food, Thai food and also some snacks and so on. That is very good for the local economy, the income distribution very good. And also for the visitors, they are the quality tourists. They come from the big cities, have buying powers, and also from the middle of, from cultural tourism to visit the temple, and also Buddhism culture now become the leisure market.

And in the future going to be the largely market for shopping something like that, and also grow up to the wellness tourism, medical tourism in future, more and more value. That is the cool things of the Chinese… So you covered economically, it is beneficial for the local community and also the spending pattern is healthy. So what about the social and environmental issues? For the social and environmental issues, some residents I think for Bangkok,

the local people they don’t mind because it is already crowded. I think the tourists still small compared to the local population. In Chiang Mai for the tourism sector

quite welcome, very welcome. For the local residence they quite concern but today very bitter because I think the quality tourists, educated one, Sometimes they demand for the more quality that very cool they are looking for the luxury, for the premium for the authentic one that is a good point. Especially, the tourists will come from large cities and educated. Ok, So professor Jenkins, you lived in Thailand for many years, and also probably as a tourists. You visited many times being on island and being on major cities. How do you see this kind of market segmentation and also what stage do you see the tourism development in Thailand for the mainland Chinese market?

Well, one of the things you start off with I see you know it is Ms and Mrs of Chinese tourists don’t spend money. It is not true. If you look at the expense per capital of Chinese tourists is very high. You may not staying always in five star hotels for the compensate by spending money in the shops. That’s the first thing. Secondly, professor Nopasit used a very important word here, we talks about repeat visitors. Most countries are desperate to have the component repeat visitors, because it suggests to them that the tourists arriving are satisfied. Because you are not satisfied, you won’t repeat visit London or Paris or Chiang Mai, for example. So those two things are very positive.

Thirdly, if you go 50% of your visitors coming from China. That’s not a bad thing. It still allowed you to diversify and in other market, you might say,okey, we want to look at the richer Singaporean or Hong Kong people, people from Malaysian or Indian. So it helps you to say we’ve got this this core market which is very important. And we want diversify, but we don’t simply want more tourists. What we want is wealthy tourists, if you like, higher per capita spend tourists. Now there is one issue, of course, as tourism develops, then

it’s inevitable that you are going to get some social problems. In big cities, it’s not so much of problems because you see Bangkok is huge city, London is a huge city, Paris is a huge city, Beijing is a huge city. In the smaller area, particularly when people going to see the rural areas, are begining to experience more cultural tourism, like temple visits and its connected. So it can’t be a problem, but one of the things we know about tourism development, that it can induce problem, as we all know this. So part of our planning must be to say let’s prevent the things happening. But my own feeling is that as I said to you earlier, in our early interview.

And I would say

Thailand has built important hubbling sent for the Asian certainly of Asia. Generally, more people will becoming maybe not just be one of the day, but they will becoming are using as two center and location. So I own feeling is that the future for Thailand is that look at the moment, is very positive. Great. So I guess I totally agree with both of you. Myself, I have been to Thailand probably at least 2 or 3 times a year as a visitor, so I do spend, so I contribute to your economy. So I think that’s probably what is going on.

And I also feel that probably it’s still at early stage of development, the future do look probably thing and I’m sure the numbers were keep going and going. Because, according to our research, there are probably less than 5% of the 1.3 billion people in China traveling overseas including in Thailand. I will definitely to say the potential to grow, but then we do need to consider what other social, economic and environmental benefit for our community. Tourism is always good for the destination, but also we really need to make sure that the community really ready to welcome such a large scale of tourists.

I’m sure that there is a lot of benefit bring in, but also we have to consider on the resident side. So for that, probably we can conclude this section. Thank you very much.