Thailand gets high marks as a tourist destination

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Thailand gets high marks as a tourist destination

Post by Gaybutton »

Especially among Chinese tourists. With the number of tour buses in Pattaya I discovered I can't count that high . . .
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Thailand makes holiday magazine poll, despite taxi rip-offs

Thailand held its ground as Thai Airways and Bangkok slipped in Smart Travel Asia magazine's latest poll.

The big winners were Bali, Thailand (despite Bangkok's drop, largely on account of airport woes and taxi scams), Hong Kong, Shanghai, Dubai, and Singapore, with Vietnam picked as the fastest climbing destination with an attractive quality-to-price ratio.

While Qatar Airways bagged top spot in 2018 as the best airline worldwide with the best business class, just ahead of perennial favourite Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways salvaged some pride with sixth place for business class (the same as last year) and sixth place for cabin service (down from third in 2017). AirAsia was back as the No.1 budget airline in Asia, with Jetstar Asia at the second spot, while Nok Air featured in the top 10 list in any category.

"Most airlines have cut back dramatically on economy class comfort and service. This is lamentable. But US-based carriers are notoriously horrific in all classes compared with Asian carriers," said a reader. Singapore's Changi airport (where the new Terminal 4 operates) once again ranked as the best airport worldwide with a wider margin this year, while Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi was out of the top 10 for the second year in a row, with passengers complaining about overcrowding, poor traffic flow within the airport, and problems with taxis offering package deals instead of using meters.

Laid-back and breezy Samui airport, which made it to the top 10 in a number of previous years, just missed the cut, finishing at 12th this year. While Shanghai took the top spot in this year's top 10 in a number of previous years, just missed the cut, finishing at 12th this year.

While Shanghai took the top spot in this year's top 10 holiday destinations in Asia (with Bali and Taipei squeezing in together at second), Bangkok weighed in at fourth (down from third in 2017 and No.1 the year before that). Again, taxi scams appeared to be the major complaint among frequent travellers. The airport drop has also affected perceptions of Bangkok in travellers' minds. Still, four Thai destinations made it to the Top 10 holiday destinations in Asia: Bangkok, Phuket, Samui and Chiang Mai.

Hong Kong placed as the No.1 city for meetings, while Bangkok held its ground at fifth (same as in 2017). Singapore stayed at second having received a small fillip with recent world events focusing on the city.

Several Bangkok hotels fared well against regional competitors, with many listed in the top 25. These included The St Regis Bangkok (joint No.1 for business and cited for service excellence, food and beverage, quality amenities, and location) and Park Hyatt Bangkok, while The Athenee Hotel placed fifth for conferences and InterContinental Bangkok was sixth in the same category. Also in the top 25 were several Anantara hotels, Trisara, Santiburi, and three Centara hotels.

In a heavily contested field for the 10 best luxury hotels in Asia was the Siam Kempinski Hotel Bangkok, coming in third. The hotel was a popular choice across the board for a variety of reasons, with a top 10 ranking as well for best wedding hotels in Asia. The hotel was cited for service, food, and proximity to shopping and dining.

For the top 10 boutique hotels in Asia, 137 Pillars House in Chiang Mai shot to No.1 with Twinpalms Phuket and Indigo Bangkok also appearing on the top 10 list.

Other key winners in 2018 were Ayana Resort & Spa Bali (No.1 spa hotel in Asia), InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort (No.1 wedding hotel in Asia), and Grand Hyatt Bali (No.1 family hotel in Asia).

According to the survey, younger online travellers are increasingly brand-blind as the online media they primarily read is dominated by small boutique brands building presence through social media and word-of-mouth. These smaller brands see great amplification online, where legacy brands tend to lose out due to pricing, environment and other factors.

They are also impulse buyers who tend to go with the flow and can change direction abruptly. Older travellers (50-60 years) and up tend to be more discriminating when it comes to travel research, and tend to stay with classic picks where service standards can be predicted. These are legacy product consumers.

The 65-years-and-up category again seems to enjoy a second childhood of sorts, with new boutique choices and price-sensitive picks. They crave variety and local experience, and tend to fall off the luxury grid, though they will spend on quality. This is reflected in the annual vote as well.

"We are so tired of the usual brands, where there is never any thrill of the unexpected. We don't want to find New York in Phuket," said an older customer in the survey.

The poll is based on the views of a high-spending, high-travel audience that makes an average of 14 annual air trips within and to Asia.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/genera ... i-rip-offs
fountainhall

Re: Thailand gets high marks as a tourist destination

Post by fountainhall »

As we all know, there are polls – and there are polls. But unless we know who is creating the polls and roughly who and how many actually respond to polls, we have little idea how much faith to place in the results. I take most with a pinch of salt, although I do believe the annual Skytrax airline polls give a more than reasonable result of what most travellers actually experience.

So, despite decades of travel, I was not sure how trustworthy this Smart Travel Asia poll could be. One reason is that in all its 16 years of existence, I had never actually heard of the site before! No doubt, my fault! It’s a big glossy site with lots of sections and reviews allegedly penned by actual travel writers.

But what about its polls? This is what the site itself claims -
The SmartTravelAsia.com BEST IN TRAVEL POLL is a market research exercise that has run since 2004. It is an independent, free, and fair poll without nomination fees and gala dinner arm-twisting . . . This is quality market research and results have not been bought . . .

[Last year] A great many new voters came from China, India, Vietnam, Russia, Philippines and the Middle East to augment the steady visitors from USA, Australia, and UK/Europe . . .

Voting came in through the Smart Travel Asia online polling page, via social media, hotel and airline guest referrals, and through e-marketing and direct reader e-mails with comments and feedback. This is a well informed audience with readers citing over 12 annual air trips a year on business and leisure and an average household annual income of over US$150,000.
Well, that sounds all well and good - apart from "hotel and airline guest referrals" which smells more than a bit of gentle coercion. But it still does not tell me how many took part in the poll. Then a bit of a hiccup. I looked in the Advertising Information package since that will normally have a degree of reasonably reliable information backed up by facts. Remember those 12 annual trips and average income of over US$150,000? In trying to obtain advertising, suddenly these figures change. Now they tell us that they have a global audience of 1.5 million frequent flyers who take 14 trips a year and have an average income of US$178,000! So which is it? How can anyone have faith in their polls if they seemingly arbitrarily have two sets of trips their readers take and two sets of average annual income?

And we still don’t know what their actual readership figures are, but they go on to add –
Our readers are drawn from banks and financial institutions, government, fashion houses, academia, tech companies, and multinational corporations. They spend more on travel and therefore take more time on research to seek quality information . . .

As many as 96% of readers say Smart Travel Asia helps them make travel choices after which 62% book through an online agent (OTA), 20% through an offline agent, and 18% through a hotel site . . .
But at the very end comes this –
Reading times averages 3 minutes with visitors looking at an average 3 pages. The most time is spent on reccomendations and reviews.
Isn’t this the clincher? That surely spells out that this online magazine is not quite what it claims to be. If I am reading a print publication like Business Traveller magazine, there will be a lot of chaff I am not interested in. But I will certainly spend vastly more than 3 minutes reading the rest. If I am checking through a few internet reviews of a hotel I am interested in on agoda or hotels.com, that will again take longer than a mere 3 minutes. Yet Smart Travel Asia has well over 100 sub-sections with reviews on items like “Destinations, Asian Spas, Business Travel, Shopping, Nightlife, Boutique Hotels, Weather, Top Hotel Reviews, Taiwan Nightlife, Hong Kong Fun Guide, Round the World fares” and so on. Interested in a few days in Pattaya? Just one article has around 15 pages of text on my desktop computer. I defy anyone to get through that lot in anything less than 12 minutes. And yet they state average reading time is just 3 minutes? Sorry guys, I don’t buy that! And so I don’t place any faith in your polls or their results. :o :shock:

(Oh, and by the way, the editors might note that recommendations is spelled with one ‘c’ and two ‘m’s!!)

Note: bold face is used when used in the quoted article.

http://www.smarttravelasia.com
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