The Tourism Authority of Thailand has revised its 2011 forecast from 19.5 million foreign tourist arrivals down to 18.8 million in wake of the current floods that have hit Bangkok and the rest of Thailand.

The revision down by the Tourism Authority of Thailand was expected, but it falls short of the truth.

Khon Kaen BBQ

Since the Governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand is not allowed by his Thai Government Superiors to be the bearer of bad tidings, he must lie with his forecasts of foreign tourist arrivals.  The following is from the Bangkok Post, Floods reduce the number of foreign tourists.

The total number of foreign tourists visiting Thailand this year is expected to be 18.8 million, falling short of the previous target of 19.5 million visitors, according to the Tourism Department.

The original target for 2011 was 15.5 million foreign tourist arrivals, revised downward to 15 million when the earthquake and tsunami struck Japan.  Two months later, it was revised upward to 16.5 million (based on absolutely nothing) and then a month or so later to 18.5-18.8 million and finally to 19-19.5 million.  All the while, MasterCard has stated that foreign tourist arrivals in Thailand for 2011 would be approximately 10-10.5 million.  Who do you believe?

The target was revised after 28 provinces in the central region, including Bangkok have been flooded for the past couple of months, leaving millions of people homeless, the World Heritage Site in Ayutthaya submerged and accessibility by land to various provinces hampered.

The number of foreign tourist arrivals is down a heck of a lot more that what the Tourism Authority of Thailand claims.  Hotel Industry claims of 30%-50% occupancy rates in high season and Thai Air cancelling 500 flights (other airlines also) shows that the numbers are horrendous and not just down a bit.

During the first eight months of 2011, foreign tourists arriving in the country increased by 28.6% from last year to 12.9 million visitors, making the original target achievable, but the number of international visitors started to decline in September.

Since all of these number are pure fiction, the target number doesn’t really matter.  The decline that started in September will continue through at least December and maybe further since the Thai Government continues to display their ineptness daily.  Toss into the mix the possibility of for Prime Minister and fugitive from the law, Thaksin Shinawatra, being granted amnesty ensuring more riots in Bangkok and throughout the Kingdom.

On average, the number of international tourists arriving in the country is in the range of 1.5-1.8 million visitors a month, but during September, the number dropped to 1.4 million visitors and there were about 90,000 fewer visitors in October. For November, there are about 25,000 foreign tourists arriving in Thailand each day and the forecast for this month will drop by almost half to 750,000 visitors.

Total bullshit.  There are approximately 60,000 arrivals daily of which maybe 1/2 are foreign tourists.  The rest are local Thais, domestic flights, and in-transit passengers.  This means the total foreign tourist arrivals are at about 900,000 per month, if that.  Thailand will lose millions of tourists, not the numbers that the Tourism Authority of Thailand continues to post.

Although the Tourism Authority of Thailand has worked hard to promote other parts of the country that have not been affected by the floods, the target of 19.5 million visitors seems too high to reach.

Had the Tourism Authority of Thailand posted honest, accurate, timely updates, they would not be in this situation (today is 21 November and the latest “situation update at TATNews web site is 18 November at 1500 hours.  Having to sugar-coat their reports, people saw the lies having access to Facebook and Twitter, online forums, and the online news media.  Foreign tourists now know that the Thai Government has absolutely no credibility.

The Kasikorn Research Centre also predicted that the flood situation in Bangkok will cause the tourism industry losses of 15-25 billion baht during the fourth quarter of this year.

There is no way for Kasikorn or the Tourism Authority of Thailand to know how much tourists spend.  At best, it is a wild ass guess.

If the floodwaters recede this month and the tourists are confident enough to visit the country in December, the total number of foreign tourists could reach 18.9 million visitors with an estimated loss of 15 billion baht.

More bullshit numbers that cannot be verified and that no one challenges.

If the flood situation continues to December, the total number of foreign tourists visiting Thailand this year could decline to 18.6 million visitors and business lost for the tourism industry alone could reach 25 billion baht.

Showing once again that one can never believe anything that comes from the Tourism Authority of Thailand especially when they will claim that the numbers are bouncing back in December.

The text was modified to remove a broken link to http://www.tatnews.org/situation_update/5733.asp.

Tags: bullshit flood lies TAT tourism authority of thailand tourist arrivals