While fewer Chinese travel to Thailand, more Russians are coming
A recent shooting incident and reports of Chinese criminal gangs operating in Thailand have had a negative impact on Chinese visitors to the Southeast Asian country. Still Thai tourism depends heavily on Chinese travellers. Meanwhile, the Russians, who now can enjoy a visa-free period of 90 days, are coming in droves, both young draft dodgers as well as seasoned businessmen who want to protect their wealth.
Bangkok (AsiaNews) – As a result of recent attacks on Chinese nationals in Thailand, including a shooting in a shopping mall, events widely reported in China’s mass media, the number of visitors from mainland China has plummeted, reversing an almost unstoppable trend that had developed before the COVID-19 pandemic.
At least 60,000 Chinese cancelled their trips after a 14-year-old boy shot at people in the Siam Paragon Mall, in central Bangkok, on 3 October, killing a Chinese national and injuring another.
Thai tourist authorities have downplayed the incident, saying that it would not have a decisive impact on the sector; instead, they expect it to recover quickly. Nonetheless, the overall trend is not very positive ahead of the high tourist season at the end of the year and early 2024.
Chinese travellers, who represented 27 per cent of all foreign visitors in 2019, were only 12 per cent between January and August of this year. And given the situation in the Middle East, travelling is likely to become more complicated as time goes by.
Chinese disaffection, which continues despite the removal of visa requirements for Chinese citizens, is a blow to Thailand’s tourist industry.
In addition, Chinese travellers are likely to be put off by reports that Chinese criminal gangs are involved in human trafficking in countries like Cambodia and Myanmar as well as Thailand, with victims forced to work in online scam operations.
As a result, Thailand’s new government is faced with a situation that requires greater caution towards China, with whom the previous administration, dominated by the military, had close relations.
Caution and pragmatism are also necessary vis-à-vis the growing Russian presence, which includes thousands of young Russians who fled their homeland to avoid fighting in Ukraine, and wealthy Russian expats who want to protect their families and assets by investing massively in Thai real estate.
To make things easier, Thailand today granted Russian citizens a visa-free period of 90 days, to promote and further regulate a presence that has grown exponentially, to the point that some locals in the southern island of Phuket have described it as an "invasion”.
The decision is also part of Thailand’s attempt to select foreign visitors and keep a certain balance in international relations, which is typical of the country’s diplomatic behaviour, even more so at a time of major international crises.
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10/09/2020 12:23
