Phuket and Bangkok are the tourist destinations most heavily linked to the practice of investors illegally renting out their residential units as short-term accommodation, according to the Thai Hotels Association (THA), while tourism operators want the government to consider reducing the 60-day visa-free period to eligible countries.
Thienprasit Chaiyapatranun, president of the THA, said both foreign and local investors are renting out condo units to tourists, which is against the Hotel Act, which only allows a minimum rental period of 30 days.
This week there were news reports concerning a foreign national behaving in an unruly manner and causing damage at a condo project in Bangkok, raising public concerns over the practice of illegally renting out condo units on a daily basis and impacting the livelihoods of local residents.
Mr Thienprasit said these incidents have mainly occurred in the South, particularly in Phuket, where many luxury residences and villas have been sold to Russians.
In Bangkok, Chinese buyers prefer to buy a large number of condo units, while some of them have bought almost all luxury single houses within a village and provided daily shuttle services for Chinese tourists.
He said that in some cases two-bedroom condo units had been occupied by as many as nine guests, which severely disturbed neighbours. These cases were particularly severe when a juristic person was unable to take any action against the wrongdoers, he noted.
As some developers are urging the government to raise the foreign ownership quota in condos to over 49%, Mr Thienprasit said it was more important to limit the buying quota of each foreign buyer in order to prevent them from buying units in bulk or an entire floor in order to operate the units for rent as daily accommodation.
He said that maintaining the existing ownership quota would help all condo units benefit from foreign demand as potential buyers could look for other projects that still have quota available if their targeted projects had already been filled up.
"It's painful for tourism operators to hear some foreigners openly say that Thailand is a country where money can buy everything or clear out illegal actions they carried out here," said Sisdivachr Cheewarattanaporn, president of the Association of Thai Travel Agents (Atta).
He said the critical problem facing the country concerns weak law enforcement, which has greatly impacted confidence in safety.
Despite the government's efforts in solving organised crime, the number of Chinese arrivals has still not fully recovered, with only 10,000 daily arrivals right now, compared to 30,000 per day on average in 2019.
There are also issues regarding foreigners working illegally in Thailand and stealing jobs from locals, Mr Sisdivachr noted.
He said the government should seriously reconsider the length of stay for 93 visa-free countries, which should be reduced from 60 days to just 30. He added that tourists who intend to take long-stay trips still have specific visa types they can utilise.
While the Tourism Authority of Thailand is targeting 8-9 million Chinese arrivals this year, Atta said that if the level of confidence in safety remains weak, the country might only gain 6.7 million, the same number as in 2024.
