The chickens have come home to roost. There is just too much deserved bad press.
Two Canadian sisters die mysteriously in their rented bungalow on an idyllic Thai island, believed poisoned. Less than a week later, a 60-year-old Australian woman is stabbed to death in a botched robbery outside a luxury resort in Phuket.
Other headlines are less dramatic but equally troubling: taxi driver mafias, transvestite thieves, pollution, tourist brawls, traffic accidents, and at airports, radar glitches, flight delays and long immigration queues.
Thailand: Land Of Smiles Or Total Tourist Trap?
Reuters | Posted: 07/22/2012 8:13 pm Updated: 07/23/2012 8:44 am
BANGKOK, July 22 (Reuters) - Two Canadian sisters die mysteriously in their rented bungalow on an idyllic Thai island, believed poisoned. Less than a week later, a 60-year-old Australian woman is stabbed to death in a botched robbery outside a luxury resort in Phuket.
Their deaths are the latest in a tumult of violence and intrigue to shake tourism in postcard-perfect Thailand, raising questions over whether it is squandering a prized asset by failing to protect travellers arriving in record numbers.
Other headlines are less dramatic but equally troubling: taxi driver mafias, transvestite thieves, pollution, tourist brawls, traffic accidents, and at airports, radar glitches, flight delays and long immigration queues.
"The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) think numbers are going up so people must like it here, but the problem is the quality of their visit has gone down," said Larry Cunningham, Australia's Honorary Consul to Phuket, an island described by travel guide Lonely Planet as "one of the world's most famous dream destinations".
The government has vowed to tackle "mafias" in tourist areas, while in February, Cunningham appealed to Phuket's government to stop jet-ski operators who hire thugs and demand compensation for equipment damage renters did not cause.
Last year, a German television show broadcast footage of sewage pumped into the sea at popular Kata and Karon beaches.
The problems have so far failed to dull Thailand's centuries-old exotic allure. Its palm-fringed islands, gilded temples, spicy cuisine and racy nightlife helped draw 19 million visitors in 2011, generating 776 billion baht ($24.5 billion) in revenue, up 31 percent from 2010, ministry data shows.
Even so, tourism's contribution to GDP has barely increased since 2003 and now hovers at 6 percent. And with unspoiled destinations in neighbouring Myanmar opening up, Thailand is under pressure to decide what type of tourism it wants.
Phuket, for example, is at risk of sharing the same fate as another beach destination: Pattaya.
"SIN CITY"
A two-hour drive from Bangkok, Pattaya struggles to shake off a seedy reputation as Thailand's "Sin City" and with red-light entertainment, crime and unchecked development, it is synonymous with sleaze and spoiled beaches.
"We still think of tourism too much in a opportunistic, money-making way," said opposition lawmaker and former finance minister Korn Chatikavanij. "We are putting the future of the industry at risk."
Tourist safety is another pressing issue.
The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA)- a motor sport governing body - shows Thailand has the highest U.S. tourist road fatality rate in the developing world, after Honduras. Britain's foreign office warns of robberies and "vicious unprovoked attacks by gangs" on the party island, Koh Phangan.
Some tourists say standards fell short of expectations.
"In general Thailand feels safe but tour guides and drivers are more aggressive," says Mattias Ljungqvist, 31, a Swede who first visited the country a decade ago.
The TAT says it does not have regulations to tackle crime head on and safety and environmental preservation issues are encumbered by local bureaucracy.
But with plans to promote Thailand to new markets in South America and Central Asia, there is little evidence of its tourism ambitions slowing down.
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra last month said the government's tourism policy would focus on generating 2 trillion baht in revenue within five years. The Ministry of Tourism and Sports plans to spend 2.6 billion baht on developing and promoting tourist attractions in 2013.
It hopes to attract 21 million visitors this year, among them big spenders.
"People who enjoy eco-tourism tend to spend a lot of money and we are definitely targeting that type of tourist," said Chattan Khunjara Na Ayudhya, a public relations director at TAT.
Thailand: Land Of Smiles Or Total Tourist Trap?
We still think of tourism too much in a opportunistic, money-making way,"Laugh. Cry. Hurl."People who enjoy eco-tourism tend to spend a lot of money and we are definitely targeting that type of tourist,"
Up to you.
There are few problems in life that cannot be solved with toast.
One of them, however, is opening a can of corned beef with that stupid key. This cannot easily be done at the best of times, and toast is of surprisingly little use in resolving the issue.
Truly shockingOriginally Posted by cluezo
Reaction:
No Hiding Place: Phuket Must Turn Bad News Into Good
By Alan Morison
Monday, July 23, 2012
PHUKET: Expect a new round of concern about the image of Phuket and Thailand as a news agency's wrapup report on the problems of Thai tourism ripples around the world over the next few days.
The report from Reuters is entirely factual and only exaggerated a fraction. Yet it certainly takes a glass half-empty view of the issues that assail Phuket and Thai tourism.
Because Reuters is such a popular news agency, its coverage will reverberate as the article is picked up globally. Its content is likely to be translated and appear almost everywhere there are readers.
The message will change and be mixed with other material, as has already happened in Canada and New Zealand. The original headline of 'Land of Smiles or Tourist trap'?' was transformed in one publication into 'Violence, crime, pollution endanger Thailand's allure.'
The Reuters report is at least a fairer assessment than some earlier examples, which made out that Phuket is ''the crime capital of Asia.''
Anyone with half a brain knows that's not true, and it is not even especially surprising that an economist looking to boost traffic to his online trading site would apply an unhealthy dose of sensationalism to do so.
The media these days is unfettered in most of the world, which is the way it should be in all emerging democracies.
Phuket's regional rival, Bali, is also being reported openly, with negative articles listing traffic gridlock, drug smuggling, trashed beaches and rabies as among local issues.
What happens when these kinds of reports circulate is that some officials in Phuket's tourism industry gnash their teeth and long for the days when bad news was seldom thoroughly reported.
Those days have long since disappeared.
The choices remain the same for Phuket and for Thailand:
..pretend there are no problems in the tourism industry and hope the media will eventually go away;
..fix the problems.
After years of being reluctant to face reality, it appears that the tourism industry is finally coming to understand that there is really only one option - fix the problems.
http://phuketwan.com/tourism/hiding-...rn-news-16380/
Last edited by cluezo; 24th July 2012 at 04:29.
Death tours!
Yeah!
Guided tours of murder sites and poison hotels. Dare you sleep where others have died horrible deaths? Get your photo taken on the high tide mark of the 2004 tsunami. For the real adventure thrill seeking holiday makers.
We could all sit outside on banana lounges discussing the best way to rebuild a 4WD transmission and agree, through shared stories of conquests supporting our assertions, that there is no basis to the proposition that those least assured of their persuasions are the first to condemn others for theirs.
My kind of trip!
Get that man a Pullitzer.The report from Reuters is entirely factual and only exaggerated a fraction. Yet it certainly takes a glass half-empty view
Man bites dog. No, wait. Dog bites man. No, wait...
No no, ghosts. Bpen peeeee.
It is quite interesting, this latest round of negative publicity seems to have had a little effect on Thailand's tourist bosses. However, I suspect the perennial problems will persist. the problem is that the local mafias in the Thai tourist places have too much of a strangle hold on the business, there are too many vested interests and there is too little intent from central government. Really, this is going to go on and on. But, I do expect tourist numbers to keep rising. That is a given.
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Yes, Myanmar - the new kid on the block is looking pretty good.
Good luck with that! Like a cancer victim trying to "shake off" a malignant growth.
4 more years!
Burma? Never would I go to Burma, shag lil brown girls with perky tits for a dollar, stay in reasonably priced hotels, smoke their A+ weed or enjoy life there in any way! They have a military government! Fuck that!
...Thai authorities know perfectly well that negative headlines don't stand a chance against pheromones: the prospect of abundant T&A will fill incoming swamp flights for years to come...
Last edited by tomcat; 24th July 2012 at 09:54.
...majestically enthroned amid the vulgar herd...
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