Volume 14, Issue 20
1 - 15 July 2015
30 BAHT
Pattaya’s Chinese Future T he current dependence on Chinese tourists, especially in Pattaya, has now started a hot debate about the future of Thai tourism. About one foreign tourist in five in the country as a whole is Chinese, producing a total of 4.6 million travellers from the communist giant. Some research has suggested that, although only one percent of Chinese nationals have so far visited Thailand, about 50 percent would like to do so. The Chinese growing arrivals are fuelled by expanding budget-air routes which make a vacation much cheaper. The scheduled mega-expansion of U-Tapao airport, near Rayong, is expected within two years to lead to many more charter flights from Beijing, Shanghai and other Chinese population centres. Although there are already many complaints in both Bangkok and Pattaya about oversized tour buses filled with Chinese tourists clogging up highways and streets, civic authorities are reluctant to do anything
about the problem because these tourists are bringing much-needed revenue into the country. Or are they? The vast majority of Chinese visitors are “zero tourists�, that is they pay for the entire holiday in advance in China and are dragooned by the tour operators who design all their
activities on a virtual 24-hour basis, including where they sleep, eat and shop. Some travel commentators believe that the tourists are being ripped-off in all sorts of ways and that the inflated money they spend, for example on souvenirs and entrance fees, benefits only a small number of Thai operators.
There has been some evidence that the Chinese tourists with their children are even herded into sex shows, whether they want to or not, because such a visit is on their obligatory programme. Last year the Tourist Police received Continued on page 4