What is the size of the Overlander market? (Hoping to help re-open Thailand...)
 

What is the size of the overlander market?

As most folks by now know, Thailand has decided that they are essentially eliminating independent travel through Thailand. While regulations are unclear and there is a lot of confusion (even if you speak Thai), they are essentially requiring guides through the country, fixed entry/exit points and pre-approved routes.

This means the days of traveling and exploring Thailand in or on your own vehicle are effectively over.

They are also (apparently) banning ALL campers and vans from coming into Thailand.

All of this is an overreaction to Chinese driving into Thailand and causing all sorts of chaos (and living and motorcycling here it was pretty bad). But this is going to kill independent travel through Thailand...

I have a friend who is a journalist here with good connections who would like to take this up the the Tourism Authority of Thailand, but we need some estimates of the size of the overlander market, how long people tend to stay in the country, etc.

Any ideas or wild guesses appreciated!

Thanks.

Small.

Back in the mid '70s I had to fly my bike from Bangkok to Calcutta.

Looks like nowadays you'll have to fly from KL to Calcutta or Chennai.

The good news is that airfares are around 15% of what they were 40 years ago (in real terms).

If we include Chinese cars/bikes in a year IMO based on just 1 border crossing Chiang Khong/Houayxay were over the Chinese new year (2016) over 10.000 Cars/Bikes crossed in 1 week and many used to cross over during other parts of the year.
So IMO taking all border crossing with just Chinese Cars/bikes must be close to 50.000 in a year.
with all other Cars/bikes from other countries, i would put the numbers in the low 1000s over a course of the year.
Not a small number IMO.

Hey Mark,

I own a shop in Australia based on Overland travel in the past 14 months I have had at least 20 people cancel or change travel plans due to the Thailand changes. hope this help a wee bit.


Last year Australian stats
o This group of people has some discretionary income and enjoys spending time participating in touring and travelling activities*. This group will be wanting to leverage Overlander Adventure Equipment’s knowledge and customer service to ensure they get the best advice and equipment for their needs:
§ 66% are over 45
§ 78% buy new riding gear annually
§ 61% upgrade their bikes every two to five years
§ 55% spend between $1000 and $2000 each year on travel accessories
§ 31% own two bikes or more
§ 10% are making their first adventure-bike purchase
§ 42% are new to adventure riding
§ 46% upgrade helmets every two to three years
§ 54% ride weekly
§ 43% book tours
*Source: 2016 Adventure Rider Reader Survey N = 2923

Anecdotally, as we don't have exact stats, but do see a LOT of discussion on the subject on FB, PM's to me and correspondence generally, there are hundreds cancelling or changing routes over the last few months since the announcements, and thousands more will route around over the course of a year.

FWIW - we started a petition years with Ricardo Rocco in Ecuador ago to the Ecuadorian government to get them to drop their carnet requirements as the last country in the Americas to require the carnet, and it worked!

To do anything here, we need to convince them that there are lots of good people who know the rules of the road and drive safely and spend lots of money that are being needlessly blocked.

Someone needs to collect the email addresses of the important people that this message should go to, and the form will automatically email each of them. And ideally someone will put together some wording, and we'll start it immediately.

You can see the old version at /country/ecuador/protest.php for some ideas.
Post it all here and let's see what we can do.

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Great idea Mark
Have you put this info up on Adv Rider and Rideasia.net ?
It might help you get a better indication

Wayne

I think the rich people dont care if they have to pay a guide or not. They keep coming anyway as you can see in China. Its the normal people that are scared away by high prices, no matter if we are talking about thailand or the HUBB meeting. We should start a petition against high prices just to meet cool people as well ;-)

Yep, put it up at ADVrider, but not RideAsia yet -- I may just email them since they are local.

The idea for a petition is a good one -- let me talk with folks here and see who to direct it to.

The TAT (Thai Tourism Authority) keeps working on breaking down barriers within ASEAN and mainland SE Asia (e.g. a common visa, etc.) but this is coming from the Department of Land Transportation, so there may be some leverage.

More soon!

I would be very surprised if RideAsia would help in this matter as a do believe there could be a "Conflict Of Intrest"

Try Contact David at ........http://www.gt-rider.com/se-asia-moto...w/143008/posts

Thai market
 

May be better to find the right person to counter the move taken in response to the Chinese incursion, be Greta if that person could help open Burma also.