Geography Coursework, Thailand

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AIM:

To investigate the Question: “What are the characteristics of foreign visitors to Chiang Mai, Thailand?”

Brief Information

As Thailand’s largest and most religious city, even though, tourism in Chiang Mai has not been as important as in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, tourism is an essential part of the Chiang Mai’s economy. In recent years, Chiang Mai is starting to be one of the most visited tourist destination of Southeast Asia. Due to this, Chiang Mai have change with a wide range of changes in tourism, which includes; an increase in wealth, mobility, accessibility and leisure times, improvements in transport and technology, changes in life-style, interest and demands, and lastly a greater awareness of places due to coverage by the media and TV.

In the past, Chiang Mai was mostly used as a defensive city against the attacks from Burma with many constructed useful structures. However, in more recent years it began turning towards the Tourism industry mostly attracting the tourists with the ruins of 13th to 14th-century temples with some of the most beautiful and revered in the Buddhist world. Besides temples, its refined handicrafts, mountain scenery and its beautiful climates also attracts thousands of foreign tourists to visit every year. Each year, approximately 3.5 million tourists visit Chiang Mai. Of this amount, 1.5 million (43%) are foreigners. (1)

        

        For Chiang Mai’s historical sites, Wat Chedi Luang Temple is one of the most popular Chiang Mai tourist attractions. This temple dates back to 1441, which was built according with a large Lenna-style stupa and has a stone slab inscription engraved in the year 1581.

        For sceneries, Doi Sutherp is a spectacular mountain range. Its Chiang Dao Caves are well-known tourist attractions of Chiang Mai, especially for adventurers. A set of five caves housing age-old images of Buddha, these caves are perfect for trekking and exploration.

Other must-see tourist attractions in Chiang Mai such as the Doi Ang Khang, Mero Tribal Village, Wat Phra Singh, and Chiang Mai Zoo.

        All of the following had improved Chiang Mai’s economy as tourism is a way to obtain income, create jobs and to improve living standards.

However, the Tsunami crisis in Phuket in 2005 and the New Year’s Eve bombing in Bangkok had a negative impact on Thailand’s economy and especially weakened the Tourism industry. In fact, the number of arrivals from East Asia had a sharp drop of 7.34 per cent compared to the percentage from last year. (2) In a report, Hong Kong was reported as the most affected market decline of 43.38 percent, followed by China with 28.74 per cent and Vietnam with 27.52 per cent. Also, these markets became even more sensitive to Thailand’s safety issues and declined even more with the continuous bombing such as the New Year’s Even bombing in Bangkok from last year. However, in 2007, a slight relief appeared in Thailand’s Tourism industry.

        

On average, visitors of Chiang Mai spend 1,680 Baht every day. The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) encouraged domestic tourism including activities to promote day trips and to encourage people to travel on weekdays. (3)  Also, an increase of additional flights and to Thailand had occurred such as on November 5, the Thai Air Asia opened its first non-stop link between Phuket and Singapore. With this new connection, a relatively cheaper fare offered more tourists visiting Thailand these recent months.  

        

Apart from its Tourism industry, Chiang Mai is also an important international connection throughout the world that attracts many foreign businesses and organizations to settle in the city over the past decades due to its excellent infrastructure with international flight connections or other transportation connections to many different countries such as China and Singapore.

With its unique tourism industry and an important connection to its business industry, Chiang Mai had largely expand its size towards the east near the Ping River with many hotels and guesthouses built for the tourists to rest. A famous quote about Chiang Mai says that you’ve not experience Chiang Mai until you've seen the view from Doi Suthep, eaten a bowl of kao soi, and purchased an umbrella from Bo Sang! With this, we can see that Chiang Mai is a glorious city with many different varieties of attractions!

                                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                         

Hypothesis and Justification

Following the aim of this Geography Coursework, “characteristics of the foreign tourists in Chiang Mai”, I concluded with five hypotheses for this coursework.

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  1. Most visitors visit Chiang Mai as a stopover

Chiang Mai is one of Thailand’s main important city that has connections internationally with many foreign visitors making businesses or settling organizations in it over the past decades due to its excellent infrastructure with international direct flight connections or transportation connection to many different rich or high in economic potential countries such as China and Singapore. Many businessmen would probably make Chiang Mai as a stopover to settle down some documents or business and then fly to other places or countries to work on other businesses.

        Also, because many tourism ...

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