Tourism in mainland south-east Asia has entered a new era. Thailand, once something of an underground destination, has become hugely popular, attracting more than 12 million tourists every year. Its top resorts, such as Phuket and Koh Samui, are swamped by foreigners, particularly in the winter high season. But political and social trends are reshaping the country’s travel scene…
- Extracted from Joe Cummings, “Beauty at a price”, New Statesman, 17 July 2008.
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1 jonfernquest // Aug 6, 2008 at 3:33 am
Joe Cummings: “One of the latest buzz terms used by national tourism offices (NTOs) in the region is “high-yield traveller”. On the face of it, the concept seems relatively clear: “We want visitors who leave behind a lot of money.” But who are the real high-yield travellers? Unfortunately, most south-east Asian NTOs define them as the visitors with the highest expenditure per day. The NTOs believe their task is simple: target the richest and most spendthrift.”
Yet [total] per-day expenditures are not the whole story. …”
Yep. The simple models used by the NTOs never seem to capture the complex reality on the ground, of farang migratory trends to Thailand. What about the many expats (especially recently Iraq war contractors) who come to Thailand with their earnings looking for a new life and buy a house and vehicle who spend literally millions of baht here in their initial outlay, and then after this becomes effectively their home, even more?
NTO policy seems to always ignores the fact that Thailand has developed a extensive fusion culture over time with many Europeans, for instance, permanently residing here. I work with luk krung and am forever bumping into luk krung. This has been going on a long time. How old is Tiger Woods? The Isan life detailed by a retired British lawyer in a book (reviewed by Bernard Trink recently as a model married man) and blog, must be fairly typical: “The Exotic Adventures of a Literary Sexagenarian, A retired law professor, Andrew Hicks regales readers with descriptions of his idyllic life in the rice fields of Thailand, …waxes lyrical about all matters Thai, both personal, agricultural and political.” (easy to find blog in google) I guess this fusion culture reality is avoided intellectually in official discussions of this topic for some reason. Who gets tourism expenditures varies with the type of tourist also. Street vendors and guest house owners are legitimate recipients of tourism money too, not just rich boutique hotel and resort owners.
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