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Aidan Jones

At a zoo a short drive south of Bangkok, Charoon Youngprapakorn has spent a lifetime taking the pulse of Thailand’s tourism industry from an unlikely vantage point: the open jaws of crocodiles.
Handlers at his Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm & Zoo have long thrilled onlookers by coaxing tips from the audience and carefully placing the money into the mouths of animals capable of taking off an entire hand.
The crocodiles at this open-air, fan-cooled throwback to 1980s showmanship still take their tips at the end of every show. But these days, the notes are almost all Thai baht, handed over by Thai visitors. The busloads of overseas tour groups have largely disappeared.
Tourism accounts for roughly one-fifth of the Thai economy, from the five-star resorts of Phuket and Koh Samui to the jet-ski operators and massage parlours of Pattaya.
The industry has never been immune to external shocks, however – and Charoon, who is in his seventies, has felt each one register at the ticket office of a business his father founded nearly 90 years ago to sell crocodile leather to tourists.
Sars, bird flu and the global financial crisis of 2007-08 all took their toll on visitor numbers, interspersed with boom years as mass tourism from China, an emerging Russian middle class and increasingly affluent Southeast Asian travellers pushed up attendance.
Then came a three-year closure amid the Covid-19 pandemic and – as with so much else in this world – nothing at Charoon’s zoo has been quite the same since.

“We used to have maybe 100, 200 big tour buses a day,” he told This Week in Asia. “But they stopped and we had to close because of the lockdown.”
By the time the business was able to reopen, tourism trends had changed. “People stopped travelling as big groups and instead they came as FITs,” Charoon said, using the industry acronym for “free, independent tourists”.
The zoo’s ample car park now welcomes only a handful of buses at a time. Across from it, a turreted wall built for elaborate performances once staged for Chinese tour groups stands as a chipped and faded monument to the high-water mark of Thai tourism.
Nearly 40 million people visited Thailand in 2019, the final year before the pandemic’s onset and still a Southeast Asian record.
Last year’s total of 32.9 million fell well short of that peak, despite a 60-day visa-free scheme introduced in 2024 to lure travellers back.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand has now trimmed its 2026 forecast to between 30 million and 34 million international visitors, as this year’s US-Israel war on Iran and Russia’s 4½-year-old war with Ukraine conspire to drive up oil prices and, with them, international airfares to Southeast Asia.
Years of a strong baht, meanwhile, have nudged budget-conscious international travellers towards cheaper alternatives in Vietnam and Malaysia.
Money, geopolitics and changing tastes tell only half the story, however. The rest is down to patience – and Thailand’s is wearing thin.

Misbehaving tourists
Long known as the “land of smiles”, Thailand has for years prided itself on its easy-going approach to hospitality that asks little of guests beyond good manners.
But scroll through Thai social media on any given morning nowadays and the previous night’s transgressions are laid out for all to see: unpaid bills, drunken brawls and arrests for theft or vandalism among them.
Each post gets shared and reshared until the obvious disrespect for a proud local culture starts to sour public opinion on the costs of welcoming millions of strangers every year.
“Thai people are pragmatic. We do like the money [tourism brings],” said Voranai Vanijaka, a prominent political and social commentator. “But at the same time, we are highly nationalistic and we don’t like tourists acting the fool.”
This year alone, tourists have been caught performing sex acts in public, assaulting locals, trespassing on private property and vandalising local landmarks. Recent crackdowns have also revealed dozens of bars and restaurants run by foreigners but masquerading as Thai-owned enterprises.
Other crimes are far more grave. In June, Australian national Simon Peter Carman, 45, was arrested on suspicion of murdering a teenage Thai girl, stuffing her body into a suitcase and disposing of it in the undergrowth near Pattaya.
Authorities have separately uncovered Chinese and Korean cyberscam operators holed up in luxury villas, an Indian national flaunting firearms on social media and a steady stream of British cannabis mules.
All the while, public attitudes against foreigners have been hardening – a sentiment Voranai said had also been fuelled by global nativist trends, nationalism stirred up by the recent border conflict with Cambodia and grievances over foreign nationals buying up land and businesses.

“There is an anti-foreigner, anti-immigrant feeling sweeping the world; it’s not just in Thailand,” he said, describing a “mood and tone” within which every viral episode of misbehaviour now played out, and a “lower tolerance” for such actions.
The steady drumbeat of bad news pushed Thailand to end its 60-day visa-free stays for tourists from September 15. Days later, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters he thought misbehaving foreigners had “gone too far”.
Not for the first time, Thailand has said it will step back from playing the numbers game to focus on attracting fewer, higher-spending tourists instead.
Officials describe 2027 as “the year of transformation”, aiming to attract wealthier travellers willing to stay a week or two at a time.
A proposed flat fee of 450 baht (US$13.50) on all foreign visitors to fund tourism infrastructure upgrades is also being actively considered.
But this soul-searching over who Thailand wants to welcome, and for how long, comes as hotel bookings during the current low season have disappointed and as travellers appear to be waiting until the last minute to book their stays in the crucial high season that begins in November.
On the upside, Thai tourism authorities are anticipating 200,000 Chinese tourist arrivals during next month’s “golden week” holiday from October 1 to 7, just as a the baht’s recent retreat is offering travellers better value.

Against this uncertain backdrop, Charoon’s crocodile farm has enjoyed something of social media-spurred revival.
In its 1980s heyday, when his father welcomed dignitaries including Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, the business made headlines for encounters with reptiles that visitors elsewhere might only see behind glass.
But as the novelty of live-animal shows began to wear off and tastes changed, the zoo’s weekday crowds thinned to a trickle.
Then, in late August, a TikTok video showing a single visitor sitting alone in the stands at one of the zoo’s elephant shows found an audience all of its own, garnering more than 1 million likes and sending a flood of visitors streaming back through gates.
“I was shocked. I didn’t expect that. I never thought one video could communicate to so many people,” Charoon said.
“People are coming in their thousands. I just hope they keep coming.”
Show respect, or go
Thailand is far from alone in pausing to reconsider its relationship with visitors.
In Indonesia’s Bali, a foreign-led running club accused of barring locals from taking part suspended operations this summer; in Sri Lanka, Buddhist monks held a violent protest outside a newly opened Jewish community centre known as a Chabad house last month, questioning its legality; and in Vietnam, authorities have vowed zero tolerance for foreign misconduct after recent drunken rampages and a deadly shooting linked to foreign nationals.

Social media, as ever, amplifies both the insults delivered and how they are received.
One Phuket business owner, who asked not to be named to protect his livelihood, told This Week in Asia that the types of tourists now visiting Thailand were more entitled, demanding unreasonable discounts and firing off insults at the slightest whiff of not getting their own way.
“I don’t think Thais are xenophobic,” he said. “But my mindset has changed, like a lot of people on Phuket. Customers are customers, but if they’re not nice and don’t respect the culture and the people, we are happy to see them go.”
This change in public sentiment appears to have influenced the government’s decision to halve the 60-day visa free-entry. It has also produced unusually blunt warnings from ministers who normally pull their punches when addressing foreign embassies.
In August, Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow told the Chinese ambassador to “come out and explain” when sensitive issues arise “instead of speaking only to protect Chinese interests” – remarks that followed a viral confrontation between Chinese passengers and Thai officials at Bangkok’s main airport.
His comments also came amid mounting evidence of Chinese nationals illegally owning land and companies in Thailand, in some cases via officials bribed with as little as 500 baht to issue fraudulent birth certificates conferring land-ownership rights.
A small but vocal protest movement against official corruption and the influence of so-called grey money has since emerged, fronted by veteran conservative agitator Sondhi Limthongkul, who has rallied tens of thousands to take to the streets in the past.

Prime Minister Anutin, who himself rode a wave of nationalist sentiment to victory in February’s election, has responded to the backlash by fast-tracking deportations of foreign criminals and opening a wider investigation into “nominee” arrangements that allow foreign business owners to hide behind Thais.
Chinese, French, British, Indian and Russian nationals have all come under scrutiny, but it has been Israeli nationals – many of them military-aged and arriving in the wake of the war in Gaza – who have attracted the most intense attention, accused of building extensive “nominee”-business networks across southern Thai islands and of operating an illegal cemetery in Chachoengsao province.
“This has gone too far,” Anutin told officials on September 17 in response to the outrage.
“If they want to use our existing facilities, we have no problem with that. We have no objection whatsoever,” he said. “But they cannot come here, take our land, and then bury their dead here.”
Anutin’s point man on the “nominee” scandal, Deputy Interior Minister Polapee Suwunchwee, has since said he is investigating several Chabad houses across the country, warning that any found to have been built unlawfully could be torn down.
Following a meeting with Thailand’s foreign minister earlier this month, Israeli Ambassador Alona Fisher-Kamm told local media that bad behaviour was not unique to citizens of her country, adding that Hebrew-language pre-departure awareness campaigns were being introduced outlining Thai laws and cultural norms.
Nationalist commentators with large online followings have seized upon the anti-Israeli rhetoric, some veering into outright antisemitism.
“There is a risk of this getting out of hand,” Voranai said, referring to growing anti-Israeli “paranoia” stoked by hardline conservatives chasing clicks and the political spotlight.
Yet he doubts the swirling public anger will cost Anutin’s government much in the long run.
“There is no risk to the government at all – except for bad press, which they don’t care about,” Voranai said. “Nor should they, they hold all the power and they can just ride it out.”


Meet the neighbours
Amid the blizzard of bad publicity, some are determined to build bridges between foreigners and their Thai hosts.
John Ho, who was born and raised in Hong Kong but swapped a career in hospitality for a new life in Chiang Mai with his Thai wife a decade ago, this month launched CosmoLocal CNX – a government-backed “pop-up village” offering workshops, talks and communal meals to draw the Thai city’s digital-nomad population into closer contact with their Thai neighbours.
“There’s a transitional period where you’re travelling as a tourist, when you may not care that much about the local culture and language,” Ho said.
“But then, if you want to stay longer and set up a base, it naturally comes to a question of: ‘OK, let’s make friends’. It’s better to learn some Thai, and learn some of the laws around business and work.”
His pop-up, which offers discounted tickets for Thai attendees to keep it accessible, trades on Chiang Mai’s slower pace of life, distinctive northern Lanna culture and small-town feel – qualities that have attracted legions of remote workers since the pandemic.
It is a world away from the raucous party scene of Thailand’s southern islands, where many of the recent cultural clashes have occurred.
“We see the tensions,” Ho said. “But the majority of nomads do care – maybe they need more facilitation to meet the locals. This is the first attempt to do that.”
As for the seemingly endless churn of viral confrontations between Thais and foreigners?
“News cycles are news cycles,” Ho said. “I think a lot of it is out of proportion. Everyone in Thailand welcomes foreigners.”


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Illustration: Kevin Wong

Charoon Youngprapakorn, owner of Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm & Zoo. Photo: Aidan Jones

Tourist police sit side by side on Pattaya Beach in Pattaya on September 2. Photo: AFP

Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has lashed out at misbehaving foreigners. Photo: AFP

A crocodile performance at Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm & Zoo, south of Bangkok, Thailand. Photo: Aidan Jones

Visitors at Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm & Zoo, south of Bangkok, Thailand. Photo: Aidan Jones

Foreign tourists view the Temple of the Dawn from the bank of the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok, Thailand, in August. Photo: EPA

Tourists stroll down Walking Street in Pattaya, Thailand, in August. Photo: AP

Foreign tourists visit Wat Pho Temple, or the Temple of the Reclining Buddha in Bangkok, Thailand, in August. Photo: EPA

Thais take to streets in rare protest against Israel: ‘not for sale’

Protesters holding signs attend a rally demanding an end to alleged land-grabbing by foreigners in Bangkok on Thursday. Photo: AP

Political activist Sondhi Limthongku speaks to a crowd of followers in front of the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok on Thursday. Photo: AP

Thailand’s tourism crown slips as troubles in paradise mount

Illustration: Huy Truong

Koh Chang in Thailand’s Trat province, part of the same archipelago as Koh Kood near the Cambodia border. Photo: Shutterstock

A volunteer douses a fire at a house the Thai military said was hit by a Cambodian artillery strike in Sisaket province, Thailand, on December 14. Photo: AP

An aircraft flies over Chiang Mai city in Chiang Mai province, northern Thailand, last month. Photo: Reuters

A tourist couple takes a bicycle taxi on a street in Hanoi, Vietnam, in November. Photo: AFP

Tourists visit Koh Samui, Thailand. Photo: Mr Tu Fishing & Speed Boat Samui

Tourists are seen in Bangkok’s Chinatown in May. Around 4.27 million Chinese tourists visited Thailand this year. Photo: Reuters

A drone view shows people walking in a flooded area of Hat Yai district, Songkhla, Thailand, on November 23. Photo: Reuters

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Diners tuck into “phad kaphrao” at Phed Mark, a Bangkok kitchen with a pop-up feel. Photo: Aidan Jones 

Founded by YouTuber Mark Wein, Phed Mark has turned a Thai staple into a must-eat for Chinese visitors. Photo: Aidan Jones

Shoppers visit Siam Paragon shopping centre in Bangkok. Photo: EPA-EFE

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Viral misbehaviour, crimes and foreign-ownership scandals are exhausting the patience of a country famous for its hospitality


Viral misbehaviour, crimes and foreign-ownership scandals are exhausting the patience of a country famous for its hospitality.


Thailand has had enough of foreign tourists behaving badly

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Viral misbehaviour, crimes and foreign-ownership scandals are exhausting the patience of a country famous for its hospitality

Viral misbehaviour, crimes and foreign-ownership scandals are exhausting the patience of a country famous for its hospitality