Stickman

[Hugh_Hoy]

I think the "TIT" mentioned above fits the bill. There is no way, between the unstable political landscape (which was hightlighted by last year's airport takeover) and the current global economy that the LOS could have record numbers. If so, it would probably be the ONLY tourist destination in the world that has seen record numbers in the last 12 months. I think somebody is fibbing.

 

HH

[Redbaron]

i agree HH.. there may be an increase on last year, but i very much doubt a record

[Bangkoktraveler]

>They're talking about 1.68 million tourist arrivals in December, 2009, which I also find a bit staggering...

 

1.68M / 31 = 54, 193.5 tourists arriving everyday (average).

Say 250 passengers on one plane:

54193.5 / 250 = 216 flights a day.

 

If the airports is open and taking flights 18 hours a day:

218 / 18 = 12 flights an hour; one every five minutes.

 

The numbers sound bloated but TIT.

 

 

 

 

Naaah, your math is bad.

 

1,680,0000 divide by 365 is 4602 tourist per day.

 

 

4602 divided by 250 people per plane is 18.4 planes.

[Old Hippie]

That is Thai math right? He divided 1.68 Mil by 31 not 365...

[Gadfly]

here is no way, between the unstable political landscape (which was hightlighted by last year's airport takeover) and the current global economy that the LOS could have record numbers. If so, it would probably be the ONLY tourist destination in the world that has seen record numbers in the last 12 months. I think somebody is fibbing.

 

This site suggests you are right. It also provides links to other sites. It begins with: We tried for a few hours to do so, and found that it is hard to get updated data on the number of recent tourists' arrivals in the country. Both the Office of Tourism Development and the National Economic and Social Development Board (NSDB) provide poor or very difficult to access statistics. Possibly it is considered wise not to broadcast a significant downturn to widely. Maybe negative publicity is viewed as turning possible visitors away. We almost accidentally found the best updated files eventually on the Office of Tourism Development website (follow the little banner on the left saying : Tourism Statistics, on this otherwise Thai language website).

 

Since somewhere in the middle of 2008 a severe worldwide recession has dampened the desire to travel. Thailand furthermore has suffered from political instability, a closure of Suvarnabhumi Airport (26 november 2008, by the Yellow Shirts protesters)….

 

I didn't spend as much time as the people who run this website, but I also couldn't find anything credible about December. But I did find this : H109 Arrivals Figures Slump Bearing out our gloomy prognosis for the Thai tourism industry in 2009, tourist arrivals have fallen sharply in the first half of 2009. Figures released by the Office of Tourism Development (OTD) showed that tourist arrivals fell by 16.2% year-on-year (y-o-y), to arrivals of only 6.6mn. This followed a decline of 2% y-o-y in 2008 as a whole, with Thailand being one of the first countries to be affected by the global economic downturn.

 

There has been a boom in building, or trying to build, new hotels. You don't need a link for this: simple stroll down Sukhumvit and you will see all sorts of half built hotel projects. If you have been here awhile, you will also notice that many of these projects have been stalled in half-built status for quite a long time.

 

What this means is that even if tourism arrivals remain steady or improve only modestly, Thailand still has substantial over capacity.

[khunsanuk]

Hi,

 

"Naaah, your math is bad."

 

No, it's not. The 1.68M was only for the month of December. Hence, 31 days.

 

Sanuk!

 

[cavanami]

That is Thai math right? He divided 1.68 Mil by 31 not 365...

The info said tourists arriving in December (31 days).

This, 1.68 / 31...but I'm not a math major...

[Old Hippie]

Right, Thai math=subject to situation and personal need.

[shygye]

Maybe TAT is using Chinese accountants. Like how China can have huge 5+% growth without an increase in electricity use and a big drop in raw material imports from Australia.

[KimDidMeGood]

Prohibiting prostitution, for me, is a massive no-no. I firmly believe that all human beings should be able to decide what they do of their bodies (to that extent feminists who are pro-choice are contradicting themselves when they want prostitution – or porn- abolished). If it is their choice to provide sex in exchange of money, nobody should interfere in such choice, as long as the activity takes place in a fashion that does not disrupt or hinder the functioning of society.

 

Stickman is making a lot of points that are factual; however his conclusions fail to convince me because he’s not addressing the root-problem, which IMO is the lack of education and information that leads many girls to enter the industry with unrealistic expectations.

 

Of course, most BG’s and sexual masseuses would rather do something else than sex-working, but isn’t that true of many working people? Am I wrong to assume that, in the whole world, the majority of factory workers paid at minimum wages would rather do another job if they could? And that every now and then they feel they are exploited and abused but are stuck in the situation? But it wouldn’t come to mind to suggest that factory working should be prohibited.

 

I would think that if things were as desperately bad as Stickman depicts them, the active girls would strongly dissuade their sisters, cousins and friends from entering the industry, but my hunch is that most of them don’t.

 

Life is unfair, in its essence. There’s little we can do about that. What we do, as a civilized society is trying to make things more bearable for those who didn’t have the chance of reaching the higher positions of the ladder.