As part of an ongoing effort to curb the zero-dollar tour packages used by many Chinese tour operators, the Tourism Council of Thailand (TCT) has announced that the minimum price per tourist, per day for tour packages from China should be THB1,000.
The China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) will meet with the Thai Tourism and Sports Ministries today to talk about how to put this new minimum price into place.
Zero-dollar tour packages refer to tour packages sold very cheaply by Chinese tour companies to Chinese tourists. So cheap, in fact, that the tour operators don’t really make a profit on them.
Chinese vacationers are attracted to the low prices of these tours but, once they arrive in Thailand, the tour leaders attempt to upsell them all kinds of expensive add-on tours, activities and more. They also take them shopping in certain places that might also offer incentives to the tour officers for bringing their groups there.
“We hope the minimum price will help tour agents thrive and stop depending on attracting Chinese tourists with zero-dollar tour packages,” announced Ittirit Kinglek, president of the TCT.
Stats from the Tourism Department say that, Chinese vacationers tend to visit Thailand for about five days, and spend approximately THB1,000 daily on hotels, meals and transport.
Sometimes, Chinese visitors on the zero-dollar packages said “no” to the extra expenditures and were kicked off their tours and left without the simple accommodation and meals that they had already paid for. Many of these unhappy tourists filed cases with the tourist police in Thailand.
“If both sides can finalize talks and impose measures to resolve the problems of zero-dollar tours before the end of this month, we can expect more Chinese tourists to visit Thailand again,” said Ittirit.
The targeting of zero-dollar tour packages has had a fast and large effect on chinese tourism in Thailand. Numbers have already fallen for total arrivals in September, reported Bangkok Post.
The TCT estimated that Thailand would welcome 10.2 million vacationers from China in 2016 — and that 6 million of them have purchased zero-dollar tours to come to the country.
Now, those numbers might change be significantly less.
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