Thai Tourism Scores - Own Goal !!

When the helicopters evacuating national leaders from the Asean summit disappeared over the Pattaya horizon, the hopes of the ailing Thai tourism industry for a speedy recovery disappeared with them.

With a sense of deja vu, business leaders in the tourism sector found themselves back on their knees contemplating a fresh price tag of 100 billion baht in lost sales because the red shirts had staged a week of anarchy.


It could hardly have been much worse. The prime ministers and presidents who were whisked away in the emergency evacuation are in charge of countries which provide 8.5 million tourists to the kingdom a year, or 60% of the annual target.

How many of their citizens will ask what sort of security they, as individual tourists, can expect in Thailand when its security forces cannot even protect national leaders? This question is going to become a familiar one and credible answers are needed.

Predictably, the most sensitive markets have been the first to react. The initial wave of cancellations, numbering 10,000, came from China and Hong Kong. Chiang Mai ,normally packed over Songkran, saw hotel bookings drop below 60%.

This is an industry that suffered immense damage as a result of the occupation of the capital's airports last November by the yellow shirts of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). The action stranded tens of thousands of tourists and businessmen, scared away others and eroded investment confidence.

Recovery was expected to take six to nine months if all went well. It did not. Instead, potential visitors found their newspapers, TV and computer screens displaying pictures from Bangkok of buses being torched, a gas tanker loaded with eight tonnes of LPG positioned so it could be used as a terrible weapon and soldiers brandishing automatic rifles and confronting mobs.Now comes the attempt on the life of PAD leader Sondhi Limthongkul and the repercussions that could ensue.

None of this bodes well for inbound tourism which is already competing in a diminished global market. The worldwide recession has put people out of work and placed overseas holidays beyond the reach of many families.

Those who can afford to travel will be selective and not in a mood to take risks. The tourism industry's biggest headache is uncertainty. Right now, everything is calm, at least on the surface, because the Abhisit government has done an exemplary job of restoring order. But the nation's capital has spent the past week under a state of emergency, backed by armed soldiers positioned in public areas. This has done little to inspire confidence among visitors.

But not all is gloom and doom. The government has fast-tracked an initiative to invest about 6.6 billion baht in tourism projects over the next three years as part of efforts to rebuild the tourism industry. That ambitious package is separate from 10.23 billion baht in tourism-related infrastructure spending, planned for the same period.

It includes 75 million baht to restore foreign visitor confidence and increase safety measures in tourism spots and 325 million baht to convince foreign visitors to travel to Thailand both for business and leisure. Much of the rest is to be sure they have a greater variety of attractions.

If the revised, dismal forecast for this year does prove to be accurate, at least the respite would allow time for our natural resources to recuperate. Mass tourism has not been kind to our coastlines, coral, parks, villages and ways of life.

Nature could certainly benefit from a rest!.

Source: Bangkok Post 20th April 2009