Top businessman warns Thais not to chase away Chinese tourists

Charoen Pokphand vice chairman and CEO Thanakorn Seriburi warned Thai people not to chase away or boycott Chinese tourists because of the misbehavior of some of the tourists.

Delivering a speech, entitled “Tales of the Land of the Dragon” at a seminar by the Foreign Trade Department at the Centara Grand Central Plaza Hotel, Mr Thanakorn cited the recent wave of criticisms in the social media against the alleged misconduct of some Chinese tourists, resulting in widespread dissent and misperception among Thais of Chinese tourists in general.

The prominent experience with a long working experience in China pointed out that the number of Chinese tourists who misbehaved and caused troubles at several tourist destinations were just a minority while most Chinese tourists.

“Do not miss out the opportunity. More Chinese will travel abroad and if Chinese tourists avoid coming to Thailand and visiting other countries instead, Thailand will lose heavily,” said Mr Thanakorn.

He predicted that as many as 10 million Chinese tourists would visit Thailand this year – up from seven million last year. “Out of a population 1.3 billion, 65 million of them have passports and many of them are yet to travel overseas. Just imagine if they all come out of China and many of the head for Thailand, we won’t be able to accept them,” he said.

Earlier last week, some Chinese press repeated the publication of cartoons with a plea for Thai people not to reject or look down upon Chinese tourists in general because of the alleged misbehavior of a minority of tourists.

Some hotels in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai have reportedly felt the heat of suspected boycott by some Chinese tour agencies due to the negative criticisms against Chinese tourists in the social media.