Thailand 'tired' of Chinese tourists

Despite his years of experience and fluency in both Mandarin and English, Thai tour guide Saichon Chounchou finds himself at the bottom of the industry as Chinese tourists return. He is being out-maneuvered by illegal Chinese tour guides.

"You can see them everywhere in popular destinations like Phuket, Samui, Chiang Mai, Bangkok... In all those places, the authorities turn a blind eye," Saichon, 48, told the Hong Kong newspaper SCMP .

Chinese tourists visit Bangkok after the pandemic

According to Saichon, as tourists from China, South Korea, Russia... return, experts warn that more and more tourists are being directed to foreign travel agencies, most of which are set up to siphon money from Thailand.

As in other countries, tour guiding is a profession reserved for Thais, and foreigners caught doing so face fines or deportation. Yet this continues to be done almost openly, Saichon said, highlighting the rampant corruption that has allowed foreign-run tour companies to profit from an industry that accounts for 12% of Thailand’s GDP.

"I'm at a disadvantage because I follow the rules," Saichon said.

China is Thailand's leading source of foreign visitors, welcoming 11 million in 2019, a quarter of the country's total international arrivals, and this year, just after returning from the pandemic, the number is expected to be around 7-8 million out of a total of around 30 million.

Chinese tourists’ spending has saved Thai tour operators, drivers, hotels, and restaurants whose incomes were wiped out by the pandemic and whose savings were eroded by inflation. But the return of Chinese tourists has also left Thai guides facing illegal competition and job losses.

Thai businesses make no profit

"Before Covid-19, Chinese tour groups only hired Thai tour guides to accompany them while Chinese tour guides did the main job. After Covid-19, the tour groups from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong are smaller, so they need a more suitable travel schedule, so they use Chinese travel agencies run by Chinese nationals in Thailand," said Chada Triamvithaya, a China expert at King Mongkut Ladkrang Institute of Technology in Bangkok.

Ms. Chada said that many Chinese tour guides are on student visas, working for low wages and receiving commissions for taking customers into shopping stores owned by Chinese businesses in Thailand.

“So in the end, Thai businesses and industries do not profit from tourism activities,” she said.

Paisarn Suethanuwong, one of 5,000 Mandarin-speaking tour guides in Thailand, said he was fed up with a system he believed was rigged against local guides. He is rallying support from the Thai Professional Guides Association to submit a petition to the Thai government in the coming days, calling for action to prevent the country’s tourism industry from being taken advantage of by Chinese companies.

"Chinese travel agents sell tours at very low prices," he said, so guides often earn their income from commissions.

According to the Thai Ministry of Tourism, there were approximately 59,000 licensed tour guides in Thailand as of January 2023. Recently, the country's Labor Minister said that foreign guides are harming jobs in the tourism industry and called on the public to report the use of illegal foreign guides through a government hotline.

Chinese tourists are being guided by Chinese people in Thailand.

The same situation happens with Korean tourists, when they always want to hire fellow Korean tour guides and only use Thai tour guides to face unexpected inspection situations by authorities.

“If this continues, Thailand’s smokeless industry will fall into foreign hands. If local workers do not have any control over the industry, there is no incentive for local businesses to engage in tourism-related businesses,” a tour guide stressed, adding that Russian tourists also hire their own guides instead of Thai ones.

Thai tour guides face unemployment

Late last year, a Chinese man named Tuhao (who had acquired Thai citizenship) was arrested on charges of money laundering and drug crimes. He ran a huge illegal business network that funneled money through jewelry, casinos and major entertainment companies to a mainly Chinese clientele in Thailand.

Thai police investigators say foreign mafia gangs use corrupt local officials to enter the country and Thai nominees to set up shell companies with 51 percent local ownership, which then mushroom out of control.

Many of these “black” business owners started out in tourism before branching out into other industries, tour guide Paisarn added. His colleague Saichon, who has been proud to show tourists the country’s charms for the past 27 years, has built his business on passion, but is now facing the threat of unemployment from Chinese nationals in his own country.

Source link: https://thanhnien.vn/thai-lan-met-moi-voi-du-khach-trung-quoc-185230320082415318.htm