Blockbuster movie scares Chinese tourists away from Thailand

From AFP / Thai PBS World

For millions of Chinese tourists, Thailand used to be a happy land of water fights, lantern festivals and delicious food.

But thanks to social media rumours and a blockbuster movie, the kingdom’s image among many Chinese people is now one of dangerous illegality and seedy scam border compounds — leaving visitor numbers plummeting.

Thailand is hugely reliant on tourism, particularly from China. The country welcomed more than 10 million Chinese visitors each year before the Covid-19 pandemic — numbers Bangkok is desperate to see return.

But its struggling holiday industry has been hit by viral social media rumours claiming that tourists might be kidnapped and sent across the border to work in brutal scamming compounds in Myanmar or Cambodia.

Chinese tourist Jia Xueqiong spent a week in Thailand with her husband and daughter, despite her parents’ disapproval.

“They felt it was not safe here, and tried to persuade us not to come,” the 44-year-old nurse told AFP outside Bangkok’s unusually quiet Grand Palace.

“All my friends said ‘You go first to explore, if it’s ok we will follow’,” she said.

Her family and friends’ concerns were stoked by “No More Bets”, a high-octane thriller claiming to be based on “real events”, about a computer programmer who ends up in a violent scamming compound in Southeast Asia after being trafficked through an unnamed country remarkably similar to Thailand.

The movie has some basis in reality.

Extensive reporting by AFP and other media has documented thousands of Chinese people lured to centres in Southeast Asia, mainly in Myanmar and Cambodia, to operate online scams fleecing victims for large sums.

But most of those involved are tricked into it with fake offers of lucrative work — not dragged off the streets while on holiday — and so far, no such scam compounds have been found in Thailand.

Despite only being released in August, “No More Bets” has become the third-most-popular film in China this year, raking in 3.8 billion yuan ($521 million) and super-charging online discussion about the dangers of visiting Thailand.

Beijing student Leanna Qian, 22, told AFP that while she knew some of the stories were “exaggerated”, she was still concerned about travelling to the kingdom.

“I’m worried that we’ll be taken to other places, such as Cambodia or Myanmar,” she said.