Coup deals new blow to tourism industry

First the tsunami, bird flu, a bloody Muslim insurgency, and now a military coup has delivered another stinging blow to Thailand's robust, resilient but luckless tourism industry.

A flurry of cancellations by would-be visitors following Tuesday's overthrow of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has tourism officials worried that the country's highest foreign exchange earner may be in trouble again despite a rapid restoration to normalcy.

The bloodless coup prompted some countries to caution their citizens against travelling to Thailand, which last year hosted 11.6 million tourists and was counting on more numbers and revenue this year.

Images of tanks in the streets of the Thai capital have apparently scared off significant numbers of tourists even though some foreign visitors already in the country made snapshots of themselves with friendly tank crews part of their holiday.

"For Bangkok as a city, we are expecting losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars," said Richard Brouwer, chief operating officer of Diethelm Travel Asia. "Our Internet providers are seeing a 20 per cent drop in their bookings."

With the coup being staged barely a month before Thailand's prime travel season begins, tourism officials are hoping for a speedy recovery. In recent years the tourism industry, generating about 6 per cent of GDP, has suffered a series of losses from the tsunami, bird flu and SARS outbreaks and is continuing to be plagued by violence in the Muslim-dominated provinces of the south.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand urged the coup leaders to make statements assuring the international community that the country remained a safe place to visit, and some tourism officials blame the media for sensationalizing the situation.

About 10 per cent of hotel guests requested early checkouts, said Hazenbroek, adding that Japanese tourists seemed most nervous.

Japan is one of Thailand's key tourist markets along with the United States and United Kingdom. The Japanese Foreign Office said they were urging their citizens to avoid travelling to Thailand unless they had extremely urgent reasons for doing so.

Source: China Daily