Another day, and more bullshit from the Department of Tourism here in Thailand.

There aren’t many days that go by that we don’t get some sort of BS report from either the Department of Tourism, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, or the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

Here is the latest pack of bologna from the Thailand Department of Tourism as reported in the Bangkok Post – Arrivals set to break 20m.

International tourist arrivals are expected to reach 20.5 million to 20.8 million this year, up in a range of 7.4% to 8.9% from 19.09 million last year, thanks to the positive trend in Asia, according to the Department of Tourism.

Gee.  We had about a 4 million plus foreign tourist arrival jump from 2010 to 2011 (according to the Department of Tourism) so why such a small forecast for 2012?  Maybe it is because the actual number of foreign tourist arrivals is about 1/2 of what the Department of Tourism is professing.

They are projected to bring in 788 billion baht in revenue, up from 734.5 billion last year.

Another wild ass guess.  The Department of Tourism has no way to determine how much foreign tourists spend.  They also have no way of knowing how much locals spend on domestic tourism.  It is all a guess.

The department’s forecast is higher than that of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) at 19.55 million tourists and revenue of 766 billion baht.

I guess that since the Department of Tourism is at the top of the Thailand tourism food chain, they can make wilder claims.

According to the UN World Tourism Organisation, global tourism is expected to grow 3-4% while Thailand should grow by 8-10% in line with the healthy regional economies this year.

Numbers from the UNWTO are about as bogus as from the Department of Tourism in Thailand.  Why would they think that Thailand tourist arrivals will triple the rest of the area?

Supol Sripan, the department director-general, said Thailand‘s top 10 markets were, in order, Malaysia, China, Russia, Australia, the UK, Japan, Korea, Singapore, India and the United States.

Supol, the director-general of the Department of Tourism, needs to learn how to count.  Unless there were drastic changes in December’s foreign tourist arrivals (which have not yet been posted at the Department of Tourism web site), then here is the top ten countries according to the fictitious numbers from the Department of Tourism.  Numbers are January-November 2011.

1. Malaysia (2,093,987)
2. Japan (1,047,181)
3. Korea (922077)
4. Russia (851,077)
5. India (838,256)
6. Laos (821,441)
7. United Kingdom (755,523)
8. Australia (739,963)
9. USA (609,559)
10. Singapore (592,498)

Somebody has the top ten wrong and my guess is the big boss at the Department of Tourism is the culprit.  China is not in the top ten and their numbers for December should be way down.  Not sure why Khun Supol mentions China and omits Laos.

The department will spend its 2012 budget of 1.81 billion baht on three main projects: developing potential tourism sites and restoring flood-hit ones, keeping tourism statistics and preparing information for the Asean Economic Community (AEC) in 2015.

What potential tourism sites?  A good reporter would have asked that question.  How much does it cost to update an Excel spreadsheet?  How many people?  I would think a High School graduate with a calculator could handle it.  Or, maybe the Department of Tourism needs two High School graduates – one to maintain the real statistics of foreign tourist arrivals and one to post the bogus numbers online.

As far as preparing information for the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), Thailand is about 4-5 years behind in preparing for this and will suffer the consequences.

Meanwhile, the TAT has forecast revenue of around 11 billion baht from tourism during the Chinese New Year, which falls on Feb 23 this year.

Lots of bullshit here.  The Tourism Authority of Thailand has activities planned from about the 16th of January until the 29th of January for Chinese New Year (which is actually 23 January 2012).  At least they do in 10 areas of Thailand according to this Press Release from TATnews.org.  But, there is a problem that is not addressed by the Department of Tourism nor by the Tourism Authority of Thailand – the Chinese aren’t coming to Thailand despite the Tourism Authority of Thailand stretching this holiday for way too long.  So far, only the Tourism Authority of Thailand Uthai Thani Facebook page has mentioned Chinese New Year – I blogged about it here

TAT governor Surapol Svetasreni forecast 300,000 international visitors spending 4 billion baht during the period, and 2.5 million domestic trips with revenue of 7 billion baht.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor is dreaming again and making up more bogus numbers.

Between 150 and 200 chartered flights from China are expected during the festival, slightly lower than last year’s figure.

There was an article in the Bangkok Post, Chinese shun Thailand, that apparently the Department of Tourism and the Tourism Authority of Thailand have not read.  The Association of Thailand Travel Agents have more reliable and truthful information:

The Association of Thailand Travel Agents (ATTA) has revised down the number of charter flights from China to Thailand in the coming Chinese New Year to around 100, down from the projection of 150 flights earlier.

So, who you gonna believe?  The ATTA or the Department of Tourism and the Tourism Authority of Thailand?

The text was modified to remove a broken link to http://www.tatnews.org/tat_release/detail.asp?id=5839.

Tags: bullshit chinese new year department of tourism foreign tourist arrivals tourism authority of thailand