Financial sources have indicated that hedge funds, apart from remaining active in the capital market, are now expanding their speculative investment wings into Thai enterprises, which are currently undergoing debt restructuring and internal engineering, in the prospect of good returns in the next few years. In view of the proclaimed successes of the Amazing Thailand campaign, hotel, tourism and travel businesses are particularly attractive to them, they say. However, there is not only increasing nervousness within Thai tourism industry circles regarding the government s liberalization programme. Resistance against globalization and the related national sell-off is on the rise in general. Referring to a recent international conference on globalization in Bangkok organized by the NGO Focus on the Global South, he said the message was that every hotel or other such asset that is sold, especially when non-Thais take a controlling interest, will contribute bit by bit to the death of economic and political sovereignty in Asia.
Tourism is perhaps the most visible industry in terms of ownership by foreigners.
Expatriates manage nearly all the major hotels, many of the tour operators and most international airline offices. Tourism has a high and as yet unmeasured leakage factor. Money leaves the country in the form of management fees, marketing, distribution systems, advertising, copyright and intellectual property fees, imports of expensive wines and meats, and via a host of other means. Muqbil suggested that in view of this process of colonization , the tourism industry should play a major role in trying to maintain the independence of Thailand and balancing the interests of global and local players .