Why fewer tourists are going to Thailand - Asia Specific podcast, BBC World Service

Thailand has been one of the most welcoming countries to tourists. But Jonathan, I was reading that things might be changing a little. Yes. I mean, they are changing the visa rules here, and some people arriving in Thailand are going to find they get a shorter stay. Now, that's in response to some well publicised incidents. of foreigners behaving badly. So I guess the question is, is this a pushback against rampant tourism, or is it more of an effort by the Thai government to try. and attract different types of visitors?

As always, I'm Mariko in Singapore. and this is Asia Specific from the BBC World Service. Twice a week we bring you Asia Pacific stories. unpacked by those who know them best. Well, our correspondent in Bangkok is Jonathan Head. Oh my goodness, Jonathan, we've not had you in so long. Welcome back. Good to be here, Mariko. It's been a wait. Yeah. I was trying to figure out how long you've lived in Thailand. Because I remember going to your first farewell party in 2009.

But can you just tell our audience. how long have you lived in Thailand? I've done three stints, so I have to bring out. my very bad journalist math to work out exactly how long it's been. It's, um, it's about 18 years in total, but in three stints, uh, this last one for 13.5 years. It is, even by BBC standards, a very long time. And for those of us who haven't been to Thailand on a getaway, can you tell us, can you paint the picture,

how important tourism is to the Thai economy? I mean, tourism almost defines what most people know about Thailand. This was the first country outside. of sort of developed world economies like Europe and the United States, to tap into the global hunger for travel, right? Back in the 1970s, Thailand came up with clever, catchy campaigns, and it stood out at the time as a very easygoing, accessible country that was stable and relatively safe, very low cost.

Initially, it was the backpackers who came in the 70s. who famously had started there, the sort of backpacking trend in the late 60s, but followed quite quickly by Europeans looking for something a bit more adventurous. than their traditional holidays in the Mediterranean or the Caribbean. And Thailand just went from strength to strength. Now, it was helped by having a tremendous variety of attractions. It's a very large country, a large geographical spread, so you've got beaches to mountains.

It's lovely and warm and tropical, sometimes a bit too warm, and it generally takes a very pragmatic approach. to offering opportunities that make money. Yeah, because we recently did an episode during Songkran Festival in Thailand, how the economy relies heavily on tourism, and that because of the rising fuel prices, you know, they might not get as many tourists and that could be quite bad for the economy. So this latest change to the visa rules?

It kind of, to me personally came as a surprise. because I thought they actually wanted to increase the number of tourists. So can you just talk us through what exactly has changed according to the government? I mean, basically they've gone back to what we would call the status quo ante. I mean, after Covid, when every country was trying. to ramp its visitor numbers up again, particularly tourist dependent countries like Thailand, the Thais decided they needed to make it as easy. as possible for people to travel. And they before that time, most people countries were coming in without a visa.

You got a 30 day stay maximum. You could extend it, but generally that's what you got. Then in two years ago, they expanded that to 60 days. and expanded the number of countries who got that visa free. Just turn up at the airport, get a stamp in your passport, um, access to Thailand. So in a way, they're just going back. But really what lies behind it is a growing frustration among Thai people. about what you might call badly behaved foreigners. It's nothing new.

There have always, you know, because of the huge numbers. of foreigners who come to Thailand, many different kinds. You've always had some who've sort of upset the locals with their bad behaviour got into trouble. But there's been a particular focus on people who've decided to stay. in Thailand and run businesses in areas they're not allowed to. The locals say it's unfair competition, criminality. You know, a lot of there's been an exposure. of a lot of networks of people from different nationalities.

who are conducting criminal activity on various visas. And I think the current government just felt we need. to be seen to do something about this. There have been a lot of very high profile cases. involving different nationalities causing trouble. And they've just simply highlighted going back to. the shorter visa free stay, the 30 days. I don't think it really addresses the problem, but it is something they can do right away. So it makes them look like they're taking action. The actual challenge,

in a country which still gets over 30 million visitors a year, of ensuring that they all behave properly and that they don't break. the rules, that's a much more tricky one that will take the governments. have always tried to deal with and found very, very tricky. So when you say locals complained about unfair competition, so we're talking about what foreigners setting up businesses. like Airbnb, car transportation services, is that the kind of stuff that we're talking about? It's so many things, Mariko.

I mean, it's not just that. I mean, this is the issue with Thailand. It's an incredibly diverse tourist industry. People literally come from... There's hardly a country in the world that doesn't send some groups of people. And we have groups of Africans. from countries like Mali or Niger who who do clothes trading here. We have winter visitors from places like Kazakhstan or from Siberia. I mean, you, the airlines that fly into Bangkok.

are almost a kind of cross-section of the entire world's airlines. You've got, um, quite large numbers of Israelis here. They tend to be a very visible demographic. They in particular have congregated on the island of Ko Pha Ngan, which is famous as a kind of lotus eaters sort of beach party hangout. And that's one area where locals really have complained. that there are foreigners doing business where they're not allowed to. But almost everywhere you go in Thailand, there have long been.

complaints that foreigners coming in are not just coming for holidays, they're coming to make money, they're coming to carry out illegal activity. And it's just been a number of, of, of very well publicised cases that have got caught up. in the Thai media that have made the government determined to crack down. So we've had you the Prime Minister has visited Ko Pha Ngan, and they discovered that of all the businesses. on the island, it's a very popular island. Two thirds have significant foreign ownership, if not complete foreign ownership. You have to remember.

that although Thailand is very accommodating to foreign visitors, it actually has an awful lot of quite strict rules. about what foreigners are like to like are allowed to do. When it comes to jobs, there's a whole category of jobs that. foreigners are literally not allowed to do under any circumstances. Strange ones. I mean, you can't be a barber, you. can't be an architect, you can't be a tour guide. There's a whole range of professions that you're not allowed to do. And this is the area the government is now promising to look at,

because I think the Thai economy is struggling and. the tourist economy has still not really recovered from Covid. And Thais who work in those areas are much more sensitive now. to seeing what they think of as foreigners breaking the rules. and doing things they shouldn't. What the government is saying is, well, what we really want is better behaved, higher value tourists. They've got all sorts of slogans and they say, this is what we want to attract. The problem is that every government in the world does that.

Thailand's done it before 20 years ago. Thaksin Shinawatra, when he was prime minister, launched the Thailand elite visa, where you pay a huge amount of money and you get met by a uniformed person. to sort of whisk you through the VIP lanes, you you get your own limousine. Um, they've always wanted to get those people. So these are the big spenders who, who they want to attract. The big spenders. We all want those. Yeah. The problem with that is, is that first of all, there's only so many. of those people in the world. They tend to be smaller in number.

It is, by its very definition, not mass tourism. They can go anywhere. A lot of them do come to Thailand, you go to Phuket, you've got the Marina there for, for for sailing, you know, luxury yachts come in there, you've got magnificent golf courses, some incredibly exclusive resorts, or you go to Koh Samui, where there are these beautiful private villas that have been built. Um, plenty of wealthy people come to Thailand, but they've got lots of other choices, and they're only ever going to be. a small part of the tourist economy when you're a mass tourist economy.

And that's what Thailand is, it's mass tourism. from every imaginable social strata, every imaginable country. You can't just turn a corner and say, right, we don't want all those those cheap tourists anymore. We just want the wealthy ones. You know, a lot of the jobs that tourism generates, the five million jobs that it does are at that lower end. You've got, you know, millions of Thais. who do very basic services, transport, massage restaurants,

or working in sort of mid, mid, mid scale mid-scale hotels. That level of tourism, that mass tourism is a big employer. But I'm just wondering, though, because as you said, if the the visitor numbers falling. and if they want to attract more people and, you know, when a story like this happens and, you know, the BBC website wrote it up, and I remember hearing online colleagues talking about how well that article did, because everyone is very keen to find out whether. or not they can go to Thailand. So it's kind of sending the wrong signal.

to potential tourists or potential visitors, while maybe sending the right message to the locals who are frustrated by. those badly behaving, badly behaved tourists. Yeah, I think they've got to get their messaging right. I mean, the thing that Thailand stood out for, I think most people would say is welcome. It's always been an incredibly welcoming country, and it doesn't sound welcoming when you're saying to people, right, we're going to cut your your visa free access down to 30 days.

I suspect, you know, most holidaymakers who come here. actually don't stay as long as 30 days. It won't affect them. Um, Thailand I think does want. to kind of wants to promote its other visa categories. Um for example, they've got the destination Thailand visa. I mean that's um that gives you, you know, a long term, it gives you five years. So it's really aimed at digital nomads, but it's not five years in one go, so you get 180 days,

then you can extend it. It's becoming quite popular. So Thailand keeps coming up with these new visa categories in the hope. of attracting new categories of people, and I'm sure it will keep on doing it. But of course, the tourist industry shifts all the time. I mean, this year we've suddenly we've had a collapse in the number of visitors. from the Middle East who've been a very important demographic. and a very high spending one as well. But of course, the war in the Gulf, in Iran, it's really cut it down. a number of flights from the Middle East has gone right down as well.

I mean, Middle Eastern visitors are a very big part of medical tourism, which is somewhere that Thailand has done very well in recently. Um, so the events themselves can shift your tourist industry. And I just think every Thai government finds itself buffeted by events, buffeted by local perceptions of tourism, um, buffeted by changing tastes of tourists to some degree, I think, especially with the Chinese, Thailand is just not.

as cool as it used to be because it's not as novel. There was a period about ten or 15 years ago where there were. Chinese soap operas all about people coming to Thailand. Everybody wanted to do it. There were Chinese coming over land. They caused a big fuss because they would drive through Laos. in their motor caravans and bring all their own food. and come into northern Thailand and never, never spend any money. We've moved on from that. And Chinese have discovered Vietnam. And suddenly, suddenly Vietnam is getting them. Huge numbers of Chinese go to Korea. Now the taste is something else you've got to chase.

You said tourism accounts for about 15% of the economy, employs about five million people. Do you think there is a possible shift away from too much reliance on tourism? Because that could really backfire as Thailand learn it. the hard way during Covid 19 pandemic. Are they is the government trying to maybe build other industries. so that the economy isn't too heavily reliant on tourism? I think they'd like to. But actually Thailand's problem is.

it's facing an awful lot of other economic challenges, too. There isn't an obvious industry there that is going to replace. what tourism can do for employment, in particular here and for the economy. I mean, Thailand's manufacturing sector is really struggling right now. It's no longer anything like as competitive as it used to be. Um, Thailand, for various reasons, is struggling to move up the technology ladder. That's partly a function of the education system and. the sort of monopoly nature of big business here.

Um, it is struggling to do that, perhaps more so even than Vietnam. It's an aging society as well. I mean, there isn't a magic economic model there. on offer to Thailand that would allow it to move relatively seamlessly away. from its dependence on tourism. Do you think Thailand can attract those big spenders? What did you call them? High-quality visitors that every country, as you said, wants to attract.

And you said this visa change is not going to probably address some. of the issues that the Thai government wants to address. So what do they need to do in order to make that shift? If you were advising maybe the Thai tourism Board. Personally, I think chasing the high net worth individuals is probably futile. because if they want to come there, there are places for them, you know, that work for them and they're already there. They've got choices. They can go elsewhere.

I think the, the bigger challenge for the government is regulating. the mass tourism economy, you know, and that's a problem if you, if you have a country where people habitually break the law. or bribe people so they can do it, I'm afraid that is typical here, then it's going to be very hard to have. people follow regulations or enforce them. But, you know, ultimately, the very best Thailand has to offer. is a finite resource and it can be easily damaged. And and the funny thing is that the government's been trying.

to get the tourists back to their pre-Covid numbers. But during Covid, when there were no tourists at all, the country was completely cut off. Actually, a lot of people in Thailand. were saying, well, hold on a minute, maybe we need to do it differently. There was all this talk of Build Back Better, the slogan that came, you know, from UN agencies as well. And in Thailand, a lot of people did say, well, maybe, you know, we shouldn't have the full moon party. on Ko Pha Ngan where people get completely wrecked. and you've got sort of drunken bodies sprawling all over the place. Maybe we should control the building of hotels.

And I have to say, for a while we believed they might do that. But the economic temptations and pressures are so strong, and the need for growth in a country which is actually suffering. from very low growth and doesn't have many other areas. of the economy doing well just means, I think, realistically, tourism, under its own momentum, will go back to the way it was done before. as a bit of a free for all, everyone trying to find their own niche. Um, and no Thai government has ever really been able to regulate.

or control it. I don't think this one will. I doubt any future Thai government will either. Oh my goodness. I have not heard of the term a full moon party in so long. And talking about the Thai massage. I mean, it's all bringing back memories. I won't be a big spender, but I will promise to behave well. if I ever go back to Thailand as a tourist. It's so great to have you back on the podcast, Jonathan. Thank you so much. Lovely to talk to you, Mariko.

You've been watching Asia Specific from the BBC World Service. with me, Mariko in Singapore. If you have any questions or thoughts on what we covered in this episode. or any other stories from the region, please leave us a comment below. You can also get in touch with us on email: AsiaSpecific@bbc.co.uk. and click like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. See you next time.