{"id":438650,"date":"2026-01-30T10:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T10:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/438650\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T10:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T10:08:09","slug":"thailand-picks-blackpinks-lisa-as-tourism-ambassador-will-chinese-visitors-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/438650\/","title":{"rendered":"Thailand picks Blackpink\u2019s Lisa as tourism ambassador \u2013 will Chinese visitors return?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thailand<\/a>\u2019s slump in visitors from China<\/a> has become so acute that Chinese tourism<\/a> workers in Phuket are learning English for the first time to attract new customers, according to a boat tour organiser.<\/p>\n

Chanchanat Boonlon said her catamaran business was once a cash cow, fully booked each day during high season by large groups of Chinese visitors who flocked to Phuket, Thailand\u2019s largest island.<\/p>\n

While the Lunar New Year holiday next month brings hopes of a seasonal bounce, data on arrivals from China in recent months is grim reading for tourism-related businesses that rely on what was once Thailand\u2019s largest visitor market.<\/p>\n

In Phuket, the slowdown has led to business closures, a reduction in operations and staff undergoing radical skills training.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven the Chinese tour guides are learning English as there are far fewer Chinese tours,\u201d Chanchanat told This Week in Asia. \u201cEveryone is relying on smaller numbers of high-income people from the Middle East, Europe and India.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TouristsTourists browsing Phuket Walking Street night market. Photo: ShutterstockChinese visitor numbers slumped by nearly 30 per cent to around 4.5 million arrivals last year, according to Thai tourism authorities. The decline was attributed to negative headlines over safety in Thailand, its border war with Cambodia<\/a>, a rising baht and Beijing\u2019s incentives to spur domestic tourism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thailand\u2019s slump in visitors from China has become so acute that Chinese tourism workers in Phuket are learning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[207083,2025,550,10945,29528,29529,144,88,1076,2344,10948,1205,216,23423,207084,1866,3999],"class_list":{"0":"post-438650","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-amazing-thailand","9":"tag-bangkok","10":"tag-beijing","11":"tag-blackpink","12":"tag-buriram","13":"tag-cambodia","14":"tag-china","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-europe","17":"tag-india","18":"tag-lisa","19":"tag-malaysia","20":"tag-music","21":"tag-myanmar","22":"tag-phuket","23":"tag-south-korea","24":"tag-vietnam"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}