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Chinese cruise ships bringing big business to Koh Samui
Channel 7 reported on the voyage of a large luxury cruise liner from China visiting Koh Samui for the first time. Tourism officials welcomed the Cost Victoria Cruise that had traveled to the southern Thai island from Zhuhai via Laem Chabang.

It was anchored off the port of Nathon and 2,000 visitors came ashore and were expected to spend millions of baht in their day on the island.

Cruise ships are increasingly visiting Koh Samui with the current figure of Chinese ships and those from countries like Singapore visiting the gulf of Thailand topping 50 per year.
Samui Times

Costa is not a Chinese cruise line, it's Italian. They just 'home port' the ship in China for part of the year.

The guests are mostly Chinese, or Marco Polo-types?

SmartAston Martin wrote: ↑Fri Oct 27, 2017 6:15 am The guests are mostly Chinese, or Marco Polo-types?

I did a 7-day cruise to Japan (round-trip Shanghai) on that ship a few years ago and the pax were about 80% Chinese, 15% European and 5% North American/'others'.

So, essentially yeah... it's a 'boat load' of Chinese tourists... ...for which you can thank the Italians.

95% chinese and Everything is prepaid before they depart. The leave very little baht in thailand, certainly not millions of baht worth of trinkets, tee shirts and bottles of water

Thanks. Flag of convenience sort of deal? All the money is going to China, right? Not to Italy, I'd wager.

Koh Samui was always one of my favorite places to visit when I first started traveling outside of the standard 'Murican travel spots. I fear the influx of Chinese mainlanders will negatively impact Koh Samui, however, it barely resembles what I loved about it anyway at this point.

Since I fear the Chinese invasion, it is a bit ironic the first time I visited Koh Samui was with my Chinese Ex who introduced Thailand to me, but she was born and raised in New York so doesn;t count as real Chinese

SmartAston Martin wrote: ↑Fri Oct 27, 2017 6:41 pm Thanks. Flag of convenience sort of deal? All the money is going to China, right? Not to Italy, I'd wager.

No, not a 'flag of convenience' situation - as I said, Costa is an Italian line and the ship is registered in Italy.

When she's home ported in China, they do hire more Chinese crew - waiters - than the usual laundry workers, plus they have to pay terminal/port fees to the Chinese. However, the profits they make from all the Chinese pax they bring to Koh Samui, go to Italy... and ultimately to Carnival Corporation share holders.

I think that's the line whose boat crashed sailing around the coast in Europe when the captain was on the piss entertaining some Eastern European bird rather than watching where he was going - Costa Concordia.

I spent 6 months on the beach in Koh Samui on my first ever visit to Thailand and the region back in 94, walked onto Maenam beach, pristine white sand and clear blue water, looked one way and then the other and not a soul to be seen. A couple of years ago I had a fanciful idea of revisiting all the places I did on that travel tour, so googled King Bungalows in Chaweng where I had my beautiful little cabin 20 steps from the beach. My 350 baht a night place was now retailing for 2,500-5,000 baht !! I'll stick with the memories, thousands on Chinese cruise ships is another sad development in my eyes.