Connect with us

News

Chinese Tourism in Thailand Hindered By High Flight Prices

Chinese Tourism in Thailand Hindered Flight Prices

Tour operators in Thailand and China say the high price of flights is preventing Chinese tourists from visiting the Kingdom as bother countries struggle to recover after the covid-19 pandemic.

According to the Tourist Administration of Thailand, the average rate for flights between important Chinese and Thai cities is still 1.5 times more than it was before the pandemic, while airfares have increased 200% for secondary destinations, making it impossible for low-cost trips to resume (TAT).

According to TAT Governor Yuthasak Supasorn, costs for March and April in every Chinese city are remain higher than they were prior to the pandemic, even if average airfares have reduced from last year.

He claimed that flights to important mainland cities cost 1.5 times as much, with prices ranging from 17,000 to 24,500 Baht for Shanghai, 20,000 to 24,000 Baht for Chengdu, and 14,000 to 15,000 Baht for Guangzhou.

According to Mr. Yuthasak, ticket costs for secondary cities without direct flights have risen for the months of March and April because the reopening only started this year and the passenger flow was still meagre during the first two months.

More than 10 airlines operated flights to Bangkok, Phuket, and Chiang Mai in February, with a total of 17,308 seats coming from eastern China’s provinces of Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Hebei.

Shanghai obtained the highest capacity of those, 10,000 seats.

According to research by Dragon Trail, the average amount spent by Chinese tourists grew as their longer, 5–10 day stays became more appealing due to rising travel costs.

chinese

Chinese travel agencies optimistic

Mr. Yuthasak attended a roadshow last week in China that was organized by the Tourist Authority of Thailand. Instead of using tour groups, they favour travelling independently and looking for new experiences with a small group of close friends or family.

According to Dragon Trail data, the average amount spent per person increased to 60,000–150,000 baht every trip from 50,000–54,000 baht on average before the pandemic.

Because of the high operational costs, Mr. Yuthasak stated that it will be challenging for tour operators to provide inexpensive excursions. Low-cost tours could not be well-liked as Chinese tourists’ preferences have changed from mass tours to individual excursions or tailored tours, he warned.

According to Mr. Yuthasak, the market structure for post-pandemic tourism in China will favour individual journeys over bulk tour groups, which have yet to resume operations.

Last week, the TAT staged roadshows in Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou. By connecting 61 Thai tourism providers with 302 Chinese travel agencies, the agency hopes to earn at least 900 million baht.

chinese

China-Thailand tourism

Meanwhile, Chinese government officials predicted that the number of Chinese tourists to Thailand may reach 500–700 million in 2023, a recovery to about 64% of the pre–epidemic level in 2019 due to China’s optimized epidemic response and pent-up demand for international travel on Wednesday. This can be expected to lead to closer cooperation in tourism between China and Thailand.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand and China Tourism Group (CTG) Travel Services Co signed a contract on Wednesday in Beijing, and Thailand’s Minister of Tourism and Sports Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said he anticipated more Chinese visitors to Thailand.

The minister noted that the signing of a letter of intent with CTG Travel Services will play a key role in promoting the development of China-Thailand tourism. He compared tourism to a bridge that connects the people of the two nations and an important mechanism for boosting the further development of bilateral relations.

Lei Haisu, chairman of CTG Travel Service Co., stated that his organization will collaborate with Thai tourism authorities to promote China-Thailand tourism so that more Chinese tourists can fully enjoy the natural scenery and travel experience of Thailand. China has started orderly reopening of outbound group business.

chinese

Chinese the largest number of foreign visitors

Thailand has long been one of China’s most popular tourist destinations, making China the largest supplier of foreign visitors and a key economic partner for the Southeast Asian nation.

In 2019, 12 percent of Thailand’s GDP came from international visitor revenue. According to media sources, over 11 million or 27% of the 39.8 million foreign tourists who visited Thailand that year were Chinese. For the last three years, this number has drastically decreased.

The COVID outbreak has had a significant impact on international travel, but as the virus’s ability to spread has been considerably improved, there are prospects for countries like Thailand and China to resume international travel, the Thai minister stated.

When a first group of Chinese tourists arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport on January 9, Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and other top officials greeted them warmly, demonstrating the value the Thai government places on Chinese visitors.

It is possible that outward travel could be further liberated and provide the global tourism rebound new impetus with China’s restart of trial outbound group trips to a total of 20 countries, including Thailand, commencing on February 6.

According to information obtained by the Global Times, the Thai government is stepping up efforts to attract more Chinese tourists by streamlining visa procedures and increasing flying capacity.

According to the minister, several Thai departments and the ministry of tourism and sports are collaborating closely to provide services connected to visas.

At the event on Wednesday, Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of the Thai Tourist Authority, told the Global Times that the average number of daily visa applications the Thai Embassy in China receives is 8,000, which is still a small number when compared to the 20,000 received prior to the epidemic.

The Thai government has improved the visa application process from paper to electronic in order to make it simpler for visitors from other countries.

The governor declared, “The Chinese market is very important to us and we will deliver a wonderful experience for Chinese tourists. One of our responsibilities is to make the visa application process simpler.

Resuming air capacity, which remains a barrier to a recovery in tourism, is among the other initiatives the Thai government is working on to facilitate foreign travel.

“It is necessary to gradually resume flights… We anticipate that 80% of flights will restart this year “added he.

The number of international visitors expected this year, according to the Thailand Tourism Authority’s previous projection, will be 20 million. They predict that an extra 5-7 million people can be added once Chinese tourists to Thailand resume.

News

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

google

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

Continue Reading

News

2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

trump

Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

Continue Reading

News

The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

SEE ALSO:

Could Last-Minute Surprises Derail Kamala Harris’ Campaign? “Nostradamus” Explains the US Poll.

Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

US Inflation will Comfort a Fed Focused on Labor Markets.

Continue Reading

Trending