What's new in business news: September 11, 2013

Hotel rates to go up as Chinese tourists spend big, Thai roads deaths ranked 9th in the world & more automatic passport screening machines for airports.

TOURISM 

Hotel rates to go up as Chinese tourists spend big

Survey results indicate that Chinese travellers were the highest spending tourists last year surpassing tourists from Germany and the United States, thanks to the rising income of China's new middle class. Chinese travellers spent US$102 billion on international travel in 2012, up 40% year-on-year. 96% of Chinese tourists went abroad for leisure purposes in 2012, while 52% travelled for business and education.

Thailand is the third largest global destination for the Chinese after the United States and Hong Kong. Chinese travellers also make up the biggest group of foreign nationals visiting Thailand.

The government's new policy to reduce import duties on luxury items is expected to to attract increasing numbers of Chinese travellers. The top two activities for Chinese tourists in Thailand are sightseeing, cited by 77% of visitors, and shopping, mentioned by 69%.

55% of the hotels in Thailand plan to raise room rates next year. 30% of hotels expect to see a doubling in Chinese guests over the next three years. Independent Chinese travellers usually stay for two to three days, spend more than those who visit as part of group tours, and can communicate in English.

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ROAD TRANSPORTATION 

Thai road deaths ranked 9th in the world

Thailand is ranked ninth highest in the world for the number of deaths on its roads, according to an annual report by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The country had 13,766 road fatalities, or an estimated 38.7 deaths per 100,000 people, between May 11 and Dec 13, 2011.

Riders of motorised two and three wheelers accounted for almost 74% of road deaths in Thailand, followed by drivers and passengers of four-wheel cars, who made up 13% of the total, and light vehicles and pedestrians, who accounted for 8%. 

The countries with more road fatalities than Thailand are India, where there were 130,037 road deaths, China, with 70,134, Brazil, with 36,499, the United States with 32,885, Russia with 26,567, Iran with 23,249, Mexico with 17,301 and South Africa, with 14,804.

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AIR TRAVEL  

More automatic passport screening machines for Thai airports

Thirty-two more automatic passport screening machines (auto-gates) to ease the problem of long immigration queues will be installed at Suvarnabhumui airport. There are about 100,000 to 120,000 passengers arriving and departing from Suvarnabhumui airport every day. The auto-gate system halves the passport processing time and speeds up passenger flows.

Passengers insert the first page of their passport in the machine, wait for the gate to open and then stand on a mark to have their picture taken and fingerprint scanned before they proceed. 

The auto-gates will be used only for Thai passengers because authorities don't have to examine Thai passports that much. Foreign visitors will use the old method of manually checking passports.

With the new machine installations, total machines will increase to 48 with eight more at Don Mueang airport and eight at Phuket airport. The new machines are expected to be operational in late January 2014. The 16 auto-gates already in operation cost 76 million baht and are split equally between the departure and arrival halls at Suvarnabhumi.

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