Despite his years of experience and fluency in both Mandarin and English, Thai tour guide Saichon Chounchou finds himself pushed to the bottom of the industry as Chinese tourists return. He is being outworked by illegal Chinese tour guides.
"You can see them everywhere in famous destinations like Phuket, Samui, Chiang Mai, Bangkok... In all those places, the authorities turn a blind eye," Saichon, 48, told the Hong Kong newspaper SCMP.
Chinese tourists visit Bangkok after the pandemic.
According to Saichon, as tourists from China, South Korea, Russia... return, experts warn that more and more tourists are being directed to foreign travel agencies, most of which are set up to siphon money from Thailand.
Like other countries, tour guiding is a profession reserved for Thais, and foreigners caught working there face fines or deportation. Yet this continues almost openly, Saichon said, highlighting the widespread corruption that has allowed foreign-run tour companies to profit from an industry that accounts for 12% of Thailand’s GDP.
"I'm at a disadvantage because I follow the rules," Saichon said.
China is Thailand's top source of foreign visitors, welcoming 11 million in 2019, a quarter of the country's total international arrivals, and this year, just after returning from the pandemic, the number is expected to be around 7-8 million out of a projected 30 million.
Chinese tourists’ spending has saved Thai tour operators, drivers, hotels, and restaurants whose incomes have been wiped out by the pandemic and whose savings have been eroded by inflation. However, the return of Chinese tourists has also left Thai guides facing illegal competition and job losses.
Thai businesses do not make profits
"Before Covid-19, Chinese tour groups only hired Thai tour guides to accompany them while the Chinese tour guides did the main work," said Chada Triamvithaya, a China expert at King Mongkut Ladkrang Institute of Technology in Bangkok. "Post Covid-19, smaller groups of mainland Chinese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong tourists needed a more tailored travel schedule, so they used Chinese travel agencies run by Chinese nationals in Thailand."
Ms. Chada said that many Chinese tour guides are on student visas, working for low wages and receiving commissions for taking customers to shopping stores owned by Chinese businesses in Thailand.
“So in the end, Thai businesses and industries do not profit from tourism activities,” she said.
Paisarn Suethanuwong, one of 5,000 Mandarin-speaking Thai tour guides, said he was fed up with a system he believed was rigged against local guides. He is rallying support from the Thai Professional Guide Association to submit a petition to the Thai government in the coming days, calling for action to prevent the country’s tourism industry from being taken advantage of by Chinese companies.
"Chinese travel agents sell tours at very low prices," he said, so tour guides usually earn income from commission.
According to the Thai Ministry of Tourism, there are about 59,000 licensed tour guides in Thailand as of January 2023. Recently, the country's Labor Minister said that foreign guides are harming jobs in the tourism industry and called on the public to report the use of illegal foreign guides through the government hotline.
Chinese tourists are being guided by Chinese people in Thailand.
The same situation happens with Korean tourists, when they always want to hire fellow countrymen as tour guides and only use Thai tour guides to face unexpected inspections by authorities.
“If this continues, Thailand’s smokeless industry will fall into foreign hands. If local workers do not have any control over the industry, there is no incentive for local businesses to engage in tourism-related businesses,” a tour guide stressed, adding that Russian tourists also hire their own guides instead of Thai ones.
Thai tour guides face unemployment
Late last year, a Chinese man named Tuhao (who has Thai citizenship) was arrested on charges of money laundering and drug crimes. He ran a huge illegal business network that funneled money through jewelry, casinos and major entertainment companies to a mainly Chinese clientele in Thailand.
Thai police investigators say foreign mafia gangs use corrupt local officials to enter the country and Thai nominees to set up shell companies with 51 percent local ownership, which then mushroom out of control.
Many of these “black” business owners started out in tourism before branching out into other industries, adds tour guide Paisarn. His colleague Saichon, who takes pride in showing tourists the country’s charms over the past 27 years, built on passion, is now facing the threat of unemployment from Chinese nationals in his own country.
