The Miracle of Thailand's Domestic Tourism?

The Miracle of Thailand's Domestic Tourism?

COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected the world at large, including Thailand. In terms of tourism, Thailand is second to none in its quality and expertise in the industry. The pandemic has halted the mobility of international visitors to the kingdom, and Thai people, too, are not allowed to easily travel overseas. International tourism has been put on hold by the virus.

The Thai government has come up with a set of initiatives to help the tourism industry in this crisis. One of the schemes is to subsidize the spending of Thai people on domestic tourism, including paying 40% of the airfare. The government expects domestic consumption would help lessen the impacts of the pandemic.

The stimulus measure seems to work extremely well. Thai people now travel to visit many places in Thailand. The infrastructures are there to support the internal tourism. The handouts from the government and the time and resources available seem to make the initiative successful. 

On July 25th and 26th, for example, millions of Thas traveled to many top tourist destinations across the country.

Asean Briefing reported that:

The Thai government has issued stimulus packages worth 22.4 billion baht (US$718 million) to revitalize its tourism industry. The packages are aimed at boosting domestic travel by subsidizing hotel accommodation, airline tickets, and facilities in tourist destinations around the country. International visitors contribute some US$64 billion to the economy annually but foreign arrivals could tumble by 65 percent in 2020 because of the pandemic. In late June 2020, Thailand’s government approved two stimulus packages worth 22.4 billion baht (US$718 million), aimed at revitalizing the country’s tourism industry.

One of the factors leading to the success of Thailand's tourism industry lies in its ability to handle the speed of the virus. The World Health Organization (WHO) has chosen Thailand and New Zealand for a film documentary on successful models for handling and curbing Covid-19 (The Bangkok Post, July 23rd, 2020).


The sum of tourism is a combination of domestic and international tourism. Tourism is also about going out and coming in (inbound and outbound tourism). Under the given circumstance, what each state can do is to promote internal consumption. The limitation of human movement at the international level means the economic strength of each state is defined by its social capiltal as well as the ability to manage natural resources.


References

1. ASEAN Briefing (July 9th, 2020). 'Thailand Issues Stimulus Packages to Boost Domestic Tourism' Retrieved from
https://www.aseanbriefing.com/news/thailand-issues-stimulus-packages-boost-domestic-tourism/

2. The Bangkok Post (July 23rd, 2020) 'Thailand to be star player in Covid success story'
Retrieved from https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1955827/thailand-to-be-star-player-in-covid-success-story-doco

The Emergence of Zombie Market

The Emergence of the Zombie Market

Janpha Thadphoothon

The phrase 'zombie firms' has been around for some time, referring to firms or companies unable to service debts over an extended period of time, but have been heavily subsidized by the authorities or outsiders. If you ask me to name a few, I am sorry to omit this part. But I am sure you can think of some without much effort.

The original use of this discourse is in the context of stock markets or investment. Under that context, a zombie company (also known as zombie firm) is "a firm that is unable to stand on its own feet – it either needs one or a series of bailouts, or is kept afloat by lenient creditors and below-market interest rates. (MBN)"

Another related term recently made available on the Internet is this - Zombie market' - the market  highly manipulated by external non-market force, often unpredictable and volatile.