Overseas Tour Groups Largely Disappear From Thai Crocodile Farm

At Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm & Zoo, a once tourist-heavy spectacle now ends mostly with Thai visitors handing over baht, while overseas tour groups have largely disappeared.

A show built for crowds now draws local tips

Handlers at the open-air, fan-cooled zoo have long entertained onlookers by coaxing tips from the audience and carefully placing the money into the mouths of crocodiles capable of taking off an entire hand.

The routine still happens at the end of every show, preserving a style of 1980s showmanship at the farm.

What has changed is the source of the money: the notes are now almost all Thai baht, handed over by Thai visitors.

Tourism’s weight sharpens the concern

Thailand’s patience is being tested by viral misbehaviour, crimes and foreign-ownership scandals involving foreign tourists, despite the country’s reputation for hospitality.

The shift matters because tourism accounts for roughly one-fifth of the Thai economy.

That economy stretches from the five-star resorts of Phuket and Koh Samui to the jet-ski operators and massage parlours of Pattaya.

The largely vanished busloads of overseas tour groups at the crocodile farm show how changes in visitor flows can be felt even at long-running attractions built around foreign crowds.

Source: South China Morning Post