Vichit Prakobgosol, president of ATTA, said the measure was necessary to draw Chinese tourists back to the kingdom following a series of unfortunate events that have prompted them to shun Thailand.

The ATTA has previously called on the Tourism Ministry to provide double-entry visas for Chinese tourists at the same cost as a single-entry visa. The proposal was raised after a tour boat with Chinese tourists sank in the sea off Phuket early September

After the accident, Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan blamed the incident on a Chinese firm for allegedly operating the tour boat services in Thailand illegally. His comment enraged many Chinese tourists, who vowed to boycott Thailand.

Vichit said he will put forward the modified proposal when he meets Tourism and Sports Minister Weerasak Kowsurat on Thursday.

Vichit said the earlier double-entry visa proposal would not be enough to regain the confidence of Chinese tourists after another incident, where a Chinese man was hit by a security guard at Don Mueang International Airport. Also, Chinese tourists have complained they were required to pay a tip of Bt300 at the immigration counters at the Don Mueang airport.

If the tourism minister disagrees with the single-entry fee exemption, the ATTA will ask him to allow Chinese tourists to get a multiple entry visa at the same cost of a single entry visa. If the proposal is approved, a Chinese tourist will pay Bt1,000 for a multiple entry visa instead of Bt5,000.

However, if the proposal is rejected again, the ATTA will stand by its double-entry visa request that would allow each Chinese tourist to enter the kingdom twice at the cost of Bt1,000, Vichit added.

Legal loopholes and lax regulation of the hotel business have led to a large number of unlicensed hotel operators and unregistered guests in major tourist destinations in Thailand, according to government and private sector officials. In addition, the widely-popular sharing economy has prompted new generations of property owners, consumers and holidaymakers to use online and mobile platforms to rent out their units or to book holiday rentals and other forms of accommodation.

Supawan Tanomkieatipume, president of the Thai Hotels Association, said the sharing economy could not be stopped, because more and more consumers preferred to use these platforms rather than continuing to use the services of traditional hotels. However, she said, many hotel operators have also adopted the new technology behind the sharing economy and various online platforms to accommodate consumer behaviour changes.

“We’re not discriminating against online sharing and other platforms but we hope all the parties concerned abide by the law,” said Supawan.

The government is supposed to ensure that accommodation owners register their guests properly and follow other regulations on safety, as well as forwarding their guests’ identities to immigration authorities, she said. In addition, they are required to pay local and other taxes as licensed hotel operators do.

So far, the government has been lax on enforcing these regulations while the number of condominium and other privately owned accommodation units serving tourists and other guests continues to skyrocket. At present, the Interior Ministry and local government agencies have jurisdiction over hotel and other rental accommodation operators.

Tourism and Sports Minister Weerasak Kowsurat says current Thai hotel law allows individual property owners a maximum of four rental rooms that can accommodate a maximum of 20 guests. They can operate like a hotel or other accommodation providers without having to register as operators.

This is seen as a legal loophole and has led to a fast-growing number of condo and apartment units being rented to tourists, especially in Bangkok and other popular tourist destinations, as online booking and sharing platforms experience phenomenal growth, including Airbnb, Booking.com and Agoda. Airbnb and Booking.com representatives could not be reached for comment. Critics have said unregulated accommodation operators have contributed to the rise of visa overstayers and cross-border criminals using the country as a hiding outpost. According to Supawan, Thailand has about 300,000 to 400,000 licensed hotel rooms but the actual number of hotel rooms and other rentals being used is thought to be double those figures.

A huge but largely unknown number of hotels and other forms of accommodation are neither registered nor paying taxes properly, said Supawan. This has negatively affected law-abiding hoteliers due to the widespread unfair competition. “We have reported this situation to the government which is losing a lot of tax revenues from these unregistered hotel and accommodation providers,” she said. Regarding Airbnb and similar private rental accommodation services, a court in Prachuap Khiri Khan province has ruled that renting out condo units to tourists is not legal.

Udom Srimaha-chota, vice president of the THA and a hotel owner in the tourist resort of Hua Hin in Prachuap Khiri Khan, recently submitted a letter to the province’s governor, urging local authorities to take legal action against those turning their condo units and other private properties into daily tourist accommodation. Udom said some condo projects in Hua Hin and other nearby resort towns were also allowing tourists to stay in their unsold rooms and charged them on a daily basis, in violation of the hotel business law. The unregulated service, says Udom, has led to safety, security and other problems for tourism and other authorities, since guests are not properly registered with local and immigration authorities. There is also no proper tax collection.

Many online and other advertisements promote condo units and apartment rooms as tourist accommodation in Hua Hin without having the proper licenses, Udom added. On the sharing economy, Weerasak said the fast-growing trend among tourists to use online platforms such as Airbnb for accommodation had multiple consequences. In his opinion, the sharing economy was supposed to enable people with surplus accommodation to rent it out but this was being widely abused. “For example, you may rent out a room at your own house to guests but this has turned into a commercial activity for many people who buy or invest in multiple condo units and rent them out to tourists on a daily basis, just like hotels,” he said.

He admitted that there were legal loopholes in the Thai hotel business law, including an allowance for landlords to not need a hotel licence unless they had more than four rooms or guests exceeding a total of 20. In response to this trend, authorities have encouraged unlicensed operators to report their guests to authorities, but enforcement of this has not been strict.

Weerasak also noted that licensed hotel operators had faced unfair competition from these operators, who should be required to report the names of their guests to immigration officials as well as pay local government fees and taxes. Furthermore, said Weerasak, there was also the matter of protecting other condominium residents, in particular the neighbours of units being rented out daily, whose quality of life was negatively |affected by the activities and behaviour of guests and tourists staying at the same building.

The research centre stated that 9.56 million visitors are expected in Q4, up 3 per cent year-on-year, since it is the tourism season.

It stated that a large number of Russian tourists are expected to visit the country along with a rising number of Chinese tourists, which had dropped in Q3.

In total, 37.99 million visitors are expected this year, growing by 6.7 per cent over 2017. Earnings from tourism are expected to grow by 9.2 per cent to Bt2 trillion.

The promotional price of Bt999 is available for three days only from Thursday until October 13, exclusive of taxes and fuel surcharges, for travel from October 28 to November 30.

Nokscoot, a medium haul low-cost carrier based at Don Mueang International Airport, recently announced the launch of four weekly flights from its base to Osaka’s Kansai International Airport with its inaugural flight to start on October 28, 2018. This follows its debut in Japan on June 1, 2018, when it inaugurated daily services on the Bangkok Don Mueang-Tokyo Narita route.

The promotional fare is available for roundtrip flights from Bangkok to Osaka only. Tickets can be booked on NokScoot’s website http://www.nokscoot.com.

This is the first time Thailand has lost its top destination status to Japan for the week-long holiday, during which at least 7 million Chinese travel abroad.

“The number of Chinese vacationers expected to make an overseas trip during Golden Week rises from 6 million during the same period last year,” it was noted on the website earlier this week.

The Chinese Embassy in Bangkok has meanwhile issued a travel advisory for Chinese intending to visit during the holiday week of “volatile weather conditions and high sea waves … in Phuket, Phang-nga and Krabi”.

The southern provinces are the three most popular destinations for Chinese visitors to Thailand.

The advisory is partly in response to July’s tour-boat disaster in Phuket, in which 47 Chinese tourists drowned when their dive boat capsized in rough waters.

But Kongsak Khuphongsakorn, president of the Thai Hotels Association’s Southern Chapter, said the number of hotel bookings by Chinese tourists visiting southern Thailand through Golden Week had risen again to the usual level after a drop of between 10 and 12 per cent last month.

The decline was blamed on the monsoon and initial reaction to the boating tragedy.

Deputy Prime Minister Gen Prawit Wongsuwan said this week he believed the tourism sector would soon return to normal after Thailand sent a formal apology to Beijing following a recent assault on a Chinese tourist at Bangkok’s Don Mueang Airport.

Prawit was asked about a report that China was preparing to “issue a yellow card” to Thai tourism concerning travel safety after a video clip of the altercation at the airport was widely shown on Chinese news and social media.

It showed a security guard briefly scuffling with and then striking a Chinese man. Netizens in China heavily criticised the guard.

However, the Chinese embassy expressed satisfaction with the apology, Prawit said.

The province’s governor, Chaiwat Chuenkosum, said this week that Bt18 million would be spent on the project.

The Loei Public Works Office will build a stairway to the hilltop, replacing a natural trail that’s somewhat difficult to climb, and a walkway around the summit.

The stairway will be easy to ascend for people of all ages, with rest stops along the way and good illumination, Chaiwat said.

At the well-lighted top the peak, tourists will be able to enjoy 360-degree panoramic views, even after dark.

Sompong Pholpattanakul, the head of public works, said Phu Bo Bit is relatively small – rising to about 460 metres above sea level but in fact only 200 metres high – so it could be developed without the need for a huge budget.

He said the stairway would be about 667 metres long.