Recently, the tourism safety of Thailand, a popular tourist destination, has been hotly debated. On March 24th, The Paper asked a number of travel agencies and online travel platforms, and they all said that there was no such thing as "receiving a large number of refunds".
Thailand and Myanmar have voiced one after another.
It can be seen that in the past few days, Thai officials have frequently voiced. According to Thai media reports on March 21st, the spokesman of the Prime Minister’s Office of Thailand, Anucha, revealed that the news about "it’s not safe to travel to Thailand" spread on social platforms in China recently was untrue, and Prime Minister Ba Yu ordered the Ministry of Tourism and Sports to clarify the situation at the cabinet meeting.
On March 23rd, the Embassy of the Kingdom of Thailand in China issued a statement saying that Thailand attaches great importance to the quality and safety of China tourists and their good impression of Thailand. "Our library reiterates that since People’s Republic of China (PRC) allowed China tourists to travel abroad, Thailand has made full preparations for the arrival of China tourists and added many communication channels for China tourists, providing convenience and security for tourists to obtain information in Thailand and inform the tourist police of emergencies."
In addition to Thailand, the Embassy of China in Myanmar also announced on March 23rd that Chen Hai, Ambassador of China to Myanmar, met with Lieutenant General Soto, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior of Myanmar in Naypyidaw, and the two sides held talks on stepping up efforts to crack down on illegal cross-border criminal activities such as online fraud and gambling. According to the news, Suotu said that Myanmar is well aware of the dangers of illegal activities such as online fraud and gambling, attaches great importance to the position that China has repeatedly stated, and has stepped up efforts to crack down. In view of the recent continuation of illegal activities in Myanmar, Myanmar is willing to join forces with China and other relevant neighboring countries to resolutely crack down and effectively curb them, and jointly safeguard the friendly cooperation between Myanmar and China and the safety of people’s lives and property.
"I haven’t received the unsubscribe yet, but the reservation volume has decreased."
On March 24th, many travel agencies told The Paper that there was basically no cancellation of orders related to Thai destinations. A person from a travel agency told The Paper: "The impact on the group tour is not reflected, and the group will not go to strange places." At the same time, a number of online travel platforms also said that they have not received relevant feedback for the time being. An insider of the online travel platform told The Paper: "The whole complaint about unsubscribe caused by Thailand, at present, the hotel and holiday products are in single digits."
However, some insiders of the travel agency told The Paper that although the cancellation has not been received yet, the booking volume has decreased. "Related false statements are likely to have a great negative impact on tourism sentiment." The person said, "In fact, we have been to Thailand many times since the opening up, and it is safe to go to regular attractions and restaurants."
Recently, many bloggers of short video platforms have published the content "Keep Safe" in Thailand. Some bloggers said in their comments: "If you want to go abroad, you must pay attention to safety, raise safety awareness, go hand in hand, and don’t trust any strangers."
"May 1" outbound tour, Thailand’s heat is still in the forefront.
In fact, up to now, Thailand is still one of the most popular destination countries for domestic outbound travel, ranking among the top in terms of search popularity and booking volume on online travel platforms.
According to the big data of Mahoneycomb, the popularity of "May 1 outbound tour" in Mahoneycomb Station has increased by more than 110% in the past week, and Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and Spain are among the top five overseas destinations with the highest orders for May 1 holiday. As of March 23, Thailand is the overseas destination with the highest order volume during the May 1 holiday, and the tourism fever has increased by 150% in the past week.
Ctrip data shows that since the beginning of this year, the popularity of tourism search in Chiang Mai on Ctrip platform has increased by over 9 times year-on-year, and the number of hotel reservations has increased by over 10 times. As of March 1st, Thailand’s Bangkok and Phuket ranked among the top five destination cities for outbound air ticket bookings in the Mainland during the May 1st holiday this year. The cities with the TOP10 bookings for outbound hotels in the Mainland during the May 1 holiday include Hong Kong, Phuket, Bangkok, Macau, Singapore, Tokyo, Koh Samui, Pattaya, Chiang Mai and Bali, and five of them are located in Thailand.
In addition, The Paper previously reported that on March 22nd, the high-end tour group in Phuket, Thailand, with a unit price of 6,399 yuan for the May Day holiday under Lingnan Business Travel Group, was full. Most of the 19-member tour group was "post-95" and "post-00", and the trip was mainly based on experience, including speedboat sailing, catamaran fishing, punching in online celebrity buildings and local night markets.
The price of outbound air tickets has been gradually decreasing.
It is worth mentioning that, in view of the recent topic of "Thailand is too expensive to go", Ctrip-related people said that the price of outbound travel has actually been gradually decreasing since the "second-class B management". Taking air tickets as an example, the average one-way price of outbound air tickets on Ctrip platform in March was 2,124 yuan, which was 51.5% lower than the same period of last year. Chiang Mai was selected as the most affordable TOP3 destination among popular booking destinations, and lived in TOP1, the most affordable destination in Thailand.
Where to go data also shows that from March 1 to 20, 2023, the booking volume of international flights (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) increased by 1.4 times compared with the same period in January 2023, and the average payment price of air tickets decreased by 7% month-on-month. TOP5 destinations were Bangkok, Hong Kong, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur and Macau.
A senior person in the tourism industry said: "It is safer to sign up for a group tour. After all, travel safety is the most basic guarantee for a travel agency group tour. If you choose to travel freely, you must not do it for ‘ Seek excitement ’ Or go to the so-called ‘ Minority ’ Attractions. "