Tourism-Related Business Pleads For Thai Govt Help

[webfact]

Tourism-related business pleads for government help

BANGKOK (NNT) -- Over 10% of tourism-related businesses in Thailand have been forced to close down as they suffer from the effect of the recent political mayhem while the rest is urging the government to promptly adopt a relief plan.

Spokesperson of the Federation of Thai Tourism Association (FETTA) Charoen Wangananont said the recent political rally in Bangkok had caused more tourism-related businesses including travel agency, spa, hotel, souvenir shops, car rental agency, and restaurant to go out of business compared to normal years. Many of the operators have started using vigorous marketing strategy in order to keep their business going. Some golf clubs now go as far as offering green fee exemption to customers.

FETTA is calling a meeting with its members to reassess the impact of the problem after members start inquiring about the progress of the government’s relief measures. The entrepreneurs claim that they have not seen any solid action taken towards implementing the tax deduction measure for tourists who show bills of accommodations of up to 15,000 THB.

Meanwhile, the tourism association in Chiang Mai has filed a request to the government asking for a 20-million-THB budget to be used to organize “Lanna Festival” in downtown Bangkok hoping that the event would help promote tourism of Northern Thailand during the low season.

-- NNT 2010-07-02

[TheBarbarian]

How sad... but how many have been closed due the sight of soldiers killing people in the street? How many businesses have been closed because of the airport occupation and how many have been closed due to the incompetence of Abhisit's boss Suthep? Lots more, the difference is that it is pretty convenient to complain when business is bad with this bunch of yellow shirt lovers, they will pay out and they can easily do so by cutting the absurd military budget.

[LomSak27]

I'm sure its over 10 per cent. It's been awhile in coming but now the nation reaps what the PAD yellows and REDs have sown. Thanks guys

[prakhonchai nick]

How many have closed because they should not have opened in the first place.

Too many people jump on the band-wagon without first doing their homework. Some will open a bar, restaurant or guest house because their neighbour is doing it and has a few customers. Those customers won't just multiply overnight - they will spread themselves over all the available establishments and everyone loses out..

To be sure the recent protests by all colours have not helped tourism, but neither they not the government can be blamed for all the tourism ills. There is just over-supply, through lack of planning.

The government should not bail everyone out.

[moggoid]

Thailand is starting to see the  longer term effects of the GFC. Less tourist arrivals from Europe with less money to spend.<br><br>

[Mitker]

How sad... but how many have been closed due the sight of soldiers killing people in the street? How many businesses have been closed because of the airport occupation and how many have been closed due to the incompetence of Abhisit's boss Suthep? Lots more, the difference is that it is pretty convenient to complain when business is bad with this bunch of yellow shirt lovers, they will pay out and they can easily do so by cutting the absurd military budget.

same old song...

[logbags]

It is not only the protests. Many currencies are down against the baht. With the internet there is continuous bad news coming out about scams, corruption and crime on blogs and forums like this. There is a perception there is no rule of law in Thailand and the Police are corrupt and inept unless there is an earn for themselves in something. Many tourist areas are now over-developed and filled with illegal immigrants who are rude and pester tourists just trying to walk down the street. Places like Phuket have let the natural beauty and charm be ruined with the endless building of ugly developments. The TV adverts currently running in Australia promoting Thailand are lame and boring. Classic cause and effect, the causes listed above and the effect is less tourists. You don't have to be Nikola Tesla to figure this out.

[Tokay]

How many have closed because they should not have opened in the first place.

Too many people jump on the band-wagon without first doing their homework. Some will open a bar, restaurant or guest house because their neighbour is doing it and has a few customers. Those customers won't just multiply overnight - they will spread themselves over all the available establishments and everyone loses out..

To be sure the recent protests by all colours have not helped tourism, but neither they not the government can be blamed for all the tourism ills. There is just over-supply, through lack of planning.

The government should not bail everyone out.

I totally agree.

Not to mention, when you build a business around an industry that can vanish tomorrow and is very unstable, don't be so shocked when you are out of business. Sure, its great when tourists are here in huge numbers but you must prepare for the off season or any down time. IMHO a business that caters only to tourists is a bad business model.

[burgdawg]

...the airport heist December 2008 has lasting damage that will go on for decades. Westerners do NOT forget. Way too many people and

airlines ate their loss and were shocked to find that no yellow shirt group leaders were arrested or prosecuted.

Instead of arriving December 1st, I hadda eat my $275 USD change to January 2009. Thanks United (UAL)!

I was getting dental work completed in Pattaya and my intelligent, well-educated Thai dentist was shocked to find out

that I even KNEW about the airport closure.

It was my turn to be shocked.

I replied:"...you close a major hub anywhere but in Thailand would've resulted in abject slaughter of the participants."

The airlines are still trying to recoup their losses with that stunt.

Airlines have quietly and assuredly shifted their hub and spoke routes to KL and safer airports.

Thais fail to grasp this.......

[kennalder]

Some golf clubs waiving the green fee?

Not around Chiang Mai. Last year I joined Mae Jo on a basic 3,000 baht membership. I just learned that it is going UP to 5,000 baht. Oh they throw in 2,000 baht credit in the most overpriced restaurant on earth. E.g. 120 baht for a large Singha. 59 baht for a cup of coffee. Last time I had lunch there a little over a month ago, and I do mean THE LAST TIME, a chicken salad and Singha cost 211 baht, including the mandatory 10% service charge. Yesterday four of us ate down the road for 220 baht. 240 with OPTIONAL tip.

As for the golfing it is great playing on an empty course. I guess they have done any analysis and found out the great majority of costs to maintain a golf course are fixed costs. A phrase from Forrest Gump comes to mind.

Then there is that "mediocre Muni", Gymkhana (sp?). They raised rates around 150 baht several months back. That was the last straw for me. The course was in horrible shape and they raised rates! Haven't been back since.

Stardome last year had a couple of Sports Days during the week where you could play 18 for 500 baht including the caddy fee. I guess they decided the course was getting too much play, now last I heard it is still 700 baht every weekday. Whatever it is I haven't been there in 6 months or so either.

Bottom line is on average rates are higher than last year and the courses are empty. Time for the Chiang Mai golf course managers to take a look at Econ. 101.

I will say as of a month or so ago, Lanna had maintained a sport day or two. On the Monday I was there, it was packed. (At least in the morning.) I'll bet they are hoping the well kept secret of supply and demand doesn't get out.

[notime]

What tax deduction for tourists spending "up to 15,000 THB" on accommodation? What nonsense is this again? Or maybe another stupid "visa cost free" complain would help? Or more advertising of pristine beaches and unspoiled nature? Or maybe that THAILAND IS CHEAP slogan?

How about improving the environment like investing in water treatment plants, improving roads and drainage, building parks and walkways/cycle-ways, under grounding those horrible spaghetti-like overhanging power-lines that are an absolute eye-sore and rutting out tourism related corruption and scamming? Wouldn’t that make some impact on attracting more tourism to Thailand?

Please keep in mind that tourism like many other businesses relay on repeated visitors/customers and a word of mouth. I'm afraid that unless some of the above problems are taken seriously on board by Thai government and the society the tourism industry on Thailand may be in the down-trend for years to come.

[csolgosz]

How sad... but how many have been closed due the sight of soldiers killing people in the street? How many businesses have been closed because of the airport occupation and how many have been closed due to the incompetence of Abhisit's boss Suthep? Lots more, the difference is that it is pretty convenient to complain when business is bad with this bunch of yellow shirt lovers, they will pay out and they can easily do so by cutting the absurd military budget.

Good post. It is clear that Thailand is suffering in many ways. Lack of tourists = suffering retail, hotel and other tourism sectors. Even a lot of the bars appear to be empty in Patpong area (if I can trust my long-range vision...) The special Silom market that was set up to help those who were disadvantaged by the fighting ended up with fighting between the registered stall owners and a lot of unregistered ones who just moved in and took the spots. People here in Bangkok are pretending to be happy, but you don't see a lot of smiles,and road rage aggression and so on are quite noticeable compared to the past.  On top of that, the rice industry is the weakest for 8 years due to the prolonged lack of rain and the dams are still very low. Still, they keep boasting that the economy is on the rise and doing well, and the baht never dropped. I don't get that. I think they still need the absurd military budget given the relations they have with their neighbours, but I wonder if it has ever occurred to them that killing their own people is never justifiable?   History will judge this government harshly.

One person who works for the welfare of others, Sombat Boonngamanong, president of Mirror Foundation, was arrested last Saturday afternoon when he was tying red ribbons on the Ratchaprasong intersection sign post.  Silencing a political opponent who works for the disadvantaged was more important than considering what he does for this country.  Why would the Government really care about helping anyone when they can do such a thing? See http://www.thailand-today.com/index.php/view/latest/sombat-boonngamanong-gets-a-day-in-court/41380 and you will see that they have blocked the thaipoliticalprisoners.wordpress.com site now so you can't even read the full article...  To my knowledge he is still in prison without trial

Edited July 2, 2010 by webfact

[pisico]

It is easy for anybody to blame others for the ills of a country's economy. Tourism is a service based business. In a year, I observed that after the Yellow shirts occupation of the airport ended, tourists began arriving in droves once again. I also noticed a distinct lack of courtesy on the part of hotel staff and owners and a haughty attitude of: "You are in our country, take it or leave it!" This is not only my personal experience but that of Farang friends who came to visit me from as far away as Brazil. They were appalled to see the two price system even when going to see a fight in the Ratchadamnoen arena. Let alone the fact that to access any tourist venues Thais do not pay but all Farangs pay sometimes a hefty price.

The lack of education that the tourist sector should have on an ongoing basis does not exist. Farangs accustomed to be pedestrians and their lives respected in their countries, feel like bulls-eyes crossing a street in Bangkok. Extortion by police and officials at the airport, overpricing and abuse of taxi drivers and Tuk-tuks only compound the situation.

Now businesses want a handout. That will put money in their till but will not solve the intrinsic problem tourism faces now and will in years to come.

The tepid attempt to improve tourism by granting free tourists visas shows how out of touch the powers that be in Thailand are with the real world.

Not many people are smiling in LOS. As time goes by and tourism continues its nose dive and gradually ex-pats slide over to Cambodia and an economic vacuum results, maybe then, real solutions will be sought. Let's hope that it happens sooner than later. Sometimes only a crisis brings about the right solutions.

[cangetman]

Please dont take my comments the wrong way i spent 9 years in thailand and love the country and most of its people to bits , but i have to say it is about time they got a kick up the backside in partucular on the Property side , there is absolutly no confidence in this part of the economy it is so corrupt , not being able to own land or certailn types of  property  , putting property in a thai persons name ,  setting up an illegal ltd company , 30 year lease , corrupt land officials , bla bla bla. They keep on talking about 6% of the economy relying on tourism i think more like 30% . Sorry Thailand you had it coming i hope you see the light and realise that farang are not in thailand to destroy your country just be fair with us thats all.<IMG class=bbc_emoticon alt= src="http://static.thaivisa.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif"> <BR><BR>

[laocowboy2]

If anything, I am surprised that it is just 10% to date. I fear that the real number is going to get a lot higher before the high season comes round again in December. Even if there had been no yellow/red shirt protests, the recessions in Europe and the US plus the appreciation of the THB had made Thailand an expensive destination, especially with higher airfares due to fuel costs and higher ticket taxes. The "tourist inflation rate" in terms of beers, bars, sports etc has also been rather haigher than the general rate of inflation in the economy. I rather suspect that numbers from Europe and the US will take a long time to recover. That leaves the Middle East, Asia and Australasia. All should continue to provide decent numbers although some Asian markets take security issues more seriuosly than others. However these travellers do not necesserily seek out the same services/outlets as the vanishing Westerners.

And even if businesses do not actually close, they will be laying off as many staff as they think they can get away with in the hope of riding out the storm.

Interestingly (from a friend in the travel business), those tourists that are travelling are diverting to Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia etc (although the Arabs are finding Malaysia too much like home :-) - so there has indeed been a Thailand-specific aspect to all this.

I have just returned from 10 days in Bangkok. Normal travel pattern was a visit every two months or so but cost pressures now make my next trip to be not before Xmas - while Thailand may still get a share of the "annual holidays" trade, I fear the long-weekend warriors like myself cannot afford it anymore given travel costs.

[ozzieovaseas]

Unfortunate for those caught up in it,but as long as "the thai way" of business strategy/thinking is applied nothing will ever change,

I dont think there is any other country in the world that uses the logic that if there are VERY few customers the prices GO UP to make up for lost business

I just cant fathom the idea of a hotel operator who would rather have an empty house instead of lowering costs to attempt to attract extra business, UNLESS of course, they are already running at a loss, in which case its time to get out.

One case from personal experience..visiting the backwaters of hua hin (somewhere in Pranburi actually) in the middle of nowhere, ran into a small hotel, which they called..resort

Looked like no-one had been there for years..it had beach frontage but was absolutely desserted, no sign of life anywhere..the only sign the place was in fact inhabited was that the pool had clear water in it and the only reason we even found the place was because we were exploring obscure beach roads by bike

When we finally found someone to ask the question of price, the answer was 3,500 baht per night

the bike couldnt start up fast enough:lol:

[SomchaiCNX]

Another 40 % may go as the quality is below standard anyway.

Barbarian those people should write a thank you note to the red shirt idiots (and the yellow idiots) instead of blaming the government.

The Chiang Mai association should be ashamed. Please ask your local red boys for help or grow up.

If you are not prepared for the bad periods and think only short term you should not be in the service sector anyway.

[laocowboy2]

Unfortunate for those caught up in it,but as long as "the thai way" of business strategy/thinking is applied nothing will ever change,

I dont think there is any other country in the world that uses the logic that if there are VERY few customers the prices GO UP to make up for lost business

I just cant fathom the idea of a hotel operator who would rather have an empty house instead of lowering costs to attempt to attract extra business, UNLESS of course, they are already running at a loss, in which case its time to get out.

One case from personal experience..visiting the backwaters of hua hin (somewhere in Pranburi actually) in the middle of nowhere, ran into a small hotel, which they called..resort

Looked like no-one had been there for years..it had beach frontage but was absolutely desserted, no sign of life anywhere..the only sign the place was in fact inhabited was that the pool had clear water in it and the only reason we even found the place was because we were exploring obscure beach roads by bike

When we finally found someone to ask the question of price, the answer was 3,500 baht per night

the bike couldnt start up fast enough:lol:

Ran into something similar in BKK as well a week ago - walk-in rate lower than on the website - in an almost empty hotel. Stayed somewhere else. Picking up on another post, I too have noted a recent decline in service quality/attitudes at hotels in BKK (have not used one outside for over 12 months now). Given that service quality is (or was) one of Thailand's key differentiators (is this a real word?), slippages in this area will have costs (as Thai Airways have found - these days some of the poorest service in South East Asia)

Edited July 2, 2010 by laocowboy2

[moetownblues]

<BR>How sad... but how many have been closed due the sight of soldiers killing people in the street? How many businesses have been closed because of the airport occupation and how many have been closed due to the incompetence of Abhisit's boss Suthep? Lots more, the difference is that it is pretty convenient to complain when business is bad with this bunch of yellow shirt lovers, they will pay out and they can easily do so by cutting the absurd military budget.<BR>

<BR><BR><IMG class=bbc_emoticon alt=:jap: src="http://static.thaivisa.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/jap.gif">  You have said it so well.  <BR><BR>Thailand created a test tube cancer of scams, rip offs and dual pricing and set it free upon what they consider stupid uneducated farangs.  Tourism is a muti million dollar industry for every country in the world.  In Thailand many low class people rely on this industry.  People such as the old lady sitting on the footpath with a newborn baby, the young children selling fowers at major intersections, the bar girls, the maids in the hotels and the service staff.  I did not mention the tuk tuk's and jet ski because they are part of the cancer.  People on Thai Visa have been warning for years of this proplem but it appears that the government did not see.  <BR><BR>Nobody is going to Thailand and nobody wants to at the moment.  In the last 5 yrs Thailand has taken a sky dive and will take many yrs to climb back up.  We can not blame this on the reds/yellows but a combination of all the politics in Thailand.  Tourists see Thailand as a land of political unrest,  a land of scams and a place of where you can be accussed of a crime you did not committ. (scam) <BR>

[thaibkk]

seems still to be red shirt lovers here complaining about soldiers killing terrorists in the streets... red shirts had no right to block a big part of bangkok and burn down parts of the city when they left...

the pot blaming the cattle it is black....

[Greenside]

Relaxing their vice like grip on the value of the baht even a little would help regain some of the Kingdom's competitiveness in both the tourist and the export sector and would encourage more ex-pats to stay too. There would be a cost to imports oil but it would be better than all these hand outs and new marketing initiatives they keep introducing. We have less to sell here than in the past and someone should wake up to the fact things are changing for good.

[samjaidee]

It is not only the protests. Many currencies are down against the baht. With the internet there is continuous bad news coming out about scams, corruption and crime on blogs and forums like this. There is a perception there is no rule of law in Thailand and the Police are corrupt and inept unless there is an earn for themselves in something. Many tourist areas are now over-developed and filled with illegal immigrants who are rude and pester tourists just trying to walk down the street. Places like Phuket have let the natural beauty and charm be ruined with the endless building of ugly developments. The TV adverts currently running in Australia promoting Thailand are lame and boring. Classic cause and effect, the causes listed above and the effect is less tourists. You don't have to be Nikola Tesla to figure this out.

Please tell me; based on your experience of these over-developed tourist areas. Where are these rude and pestering illegal immigrants from? Are they Russian, English, Korean or from another country?

[mickyboy]

It is not only the protests. Many currencies are down against the baht. With the internet there is continuous bad news coming out about scams, corruption and crime on blogs and forums like this. There is a perception there is no rule of law in Thailand and the Police are corrupt and inept unless there is an earn for themselves in something. Many tourist areas are now over-developed and filled with illegal immigrants who are rude and pester tourists just trying to walk down the street. Places like Phuket have let the natural beauty and charm be ruined with the endless building of ugly developments. The TV adverts currently running in Australia promoting Thailand are lame and boring. Classic cause and effect, the causes listed above and the effect is less tourists. You don't have to be Nikola Tesla to figure this out.

how right you are when it comes to bad news thailand come to my thoughts dungre fever and cholera as well as all the other bad things reported here and on other media channels also has someone forgotten theres a world reccesion on and the bhat at 47=£1 3 years ago 70thailand has changed even over 5 years from a culture of smiles and love annd care to a place of a more lets say gread and want phuket comes to mind here anyway i still like the place

[hansnl]

...the airport heist December 2008 has lasting damage that will go on for decades. Westerners do NOT forget. Way too many people and

airlines ate their loss and were shocked to find that no yellow shirt group leaders were arrested or prosecuted.

Instead of arriving December 1st, I hadda eat my $275 USD change to January 2009. Thanks United (UAL)!

I was getting dental work completed in Pattaya and my intelligent, well-educated Thai dentist was shocked to find out

that I even KNEW about the airport closure.

It was my turn to be shocked.

I replied:"...you close a major hub anywhere but in Thailand would've resulted in abject slaughter of the participants."

The airlines are still trying to recoup their losses with that stunt.

Airlines have quietly and assuredly shifted their hub and spoke routes to KL and safer airports.

Thais fail to grasp this.......

Maybe the tourists still remember the Airport thing.

And maybe they stay away about that.

And I am absolutely not sorry for the Airlines, that tend to think it is normal to charge 20% extra if you depart from Thailand.

However, memories of people are short, very short

I think there are two main reasons for the tourists staying away.

That is the red shirt clashes that showed that against all ideas, that Thai people can be hugely violent.

And the most important, the decline of the economy which slashes the number of tourist from western countries by 25%.

And Thailand now finds that tourists from Asia also stay away, and if they come stay shorter and spend very much less.

[swifty5x5]

It is not only the protests. Many currencies are down against the baht. With the internet there is continuous bad news coming out about scams, corruption and crime on blogs and forums like this. There is a perception there is no rule of law in Thailand and the Police are corrupt and inept unless there is an earn for themselves in something. Many tourist areas are now over-developed and filled with illegal immigrants who are rude and pester tourists just trying to walk down the street. Places like Phuket have let the natural beauty and charm be ruined with the endless building of ugly developments. The TV adverts currently running in Australia promoting Thailand are lame and boring. Classic cause and effect, the causes listed above and the effect is less tourists. You don't have to be Nikola Tesla to figure this out.

Agree

[gbswales]

people tend to remember violent protests more than peaceful ones - and will tolerate things that disrupt life for a few days but something that goes on for a month is quite another thing especially when it ends in major building being senslesly destroyed. However as others have said the downturn in tourism and the failure of badly organised businesses has many causes. Sadly the stronger Thailands economy becomes and less poor people become, the harder it will be for them to compete with the dwindling flow of tourists. Many people chose Thailand because of cheap prices combined with reasonably good service - sure the scenery and the beaches are great but many countries have those. However much people may dislike the sex industry it still brought a lot of tourists and provided work for many people - nightlife generally is another thing that people enjoy. Thailand may be able to shake off its image of wild island beach parties and cheap easy fun but in order to do this it needs something to replace it. It has natural beauty but nothing so outstanding that it cant be found elsewhere, it has resorts which could become family destinations but with the appalling lack of safety many parents would fear to bring children there....

[kuffki]

This headlines go well along with previous ones that tourism will rebound in 6 months and that they planning to reach 1 trillion from tourism and BOT showing very strong signs of tourism recovery and so on.

Little like that Thailand was not affected by US financial meltdown because Thai banks were not exposed to US markets. Now Thailand is not affected by European troubles because Thai banks are not exposed to EU markets, SO what markets is Thailand exposed to?-African?

[w11guy]

<br>How many have closed because they should not have opened in the first place.<br><br>Too many people jump on the band-wagon without first doing their homework. Some will open a bar, restaurant or guest house because their neighbour is doing it and has a few customers. Those customers won't just multiply overnight - they will spread themselves over all the available establishments and everyone loses out..<br><br>To be sure the recent protests by all colours have not helped tourism, but neither they not the government can be blamed for all the tourism ills. There is just over-supply, through lack of planning. <br><br>The government should not bail everyone out.<br>

<br><br>I agree that there are many business that shouldn't have started. They seem to be aimed at tourists but have no idea whatsoever what tourists want. They think they can just hassle them into buying things. To succeed in business you need to be offering a product or service that people want. <br><br><br>

[ozzieovaseas]

<BR>How sad... but how many have been closed due the sight of soldiers killing people in the street? How many businesses have been closed because of the airport occupation and how many have been closed due to the incompetence of Abhisit's boss Suthep? Lots more, the difference is that it is pretty convenient to complain when business is bad with this bunch of yellow shirt lovers, they will pay out and they can easily do so by cutting the absurd military budget.<BR>

<BR><BR><IMG class=bbc_emoticon alt=:jap: src="http://static.thaivisa.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/jap.gif">  You have said it so well.  <BR><BR>Thailand created a test tube cancer of scams, rip offs and dual pricing and set it free upon what they consider stupid uneducated farangs.  Tourism is a muti million dollar industry for every country in the world.  In Thailand many low class people rely on this industry.  People such as the old lady sitting on the footpath with a newborn baby, the young children selling fowers at major intersections, the bar girls, the maids in the hotels and the service staff.  I did not mention the tuk tuk's and jet ski because they are part of the cancer.  People on Thai Visa have been warning for years of this proplem but it appears that the government did not see.  <BR><BR>Nobody is going to Thailand and nobody wants to at the moment.  In the last 5 yrs Thailand has taken a sky dive and will take many yrs to climb back up.  We can not blame this on the reds/yellows but a combination of all the politics in Thailand.  Tourists see Thailand as a land of political unrest,  a land of scams and a place of where you can be accussed of a crime you did not committ. (scam) <BR>

Sadly, i have to agree

I am one who usually likes to think on the positive side, but after a few recent incidents i have to agree with your conclusion that we are looked upon as "stupid farangs"

Granted the drunken expats running amock doesnt help our reputation, but a race that brands another as "stupid" and actually believes it, only succeeds in showing how stupid itself is.

Given that the collective conciousness here do in fact believe we are stupid (they must to think that we will keep swallowing their crap) a backlash is inevitable

[RichB]

How sad... but how many have been closed due the sight of soldiers killing people in the street? How many businesses have been closed because of the airport occupation and how many have been closed due to the incompetence of Abhisit's boss Suthep? Lots more, the difference is that it is pretty convenient to complain when business is bad with this bunch of yellow shirt lovers, they will pay out and they can easily do so by cutting the absurd military budget.

What a stupid biased statement!

No-one was going to get hurt until the red mob got out of control. Abhisit and the Govt at least warned and continued to warn until the violence was started by the Reds - if they had gone home as requested there would have been no violence as the Govt had already agreed to dissolve parliament and the reds had won but the idiot stage screamers refused and the ball of wax melted.

Take off your sunglasses and put your beer down. The yellow shirt protests at the airport never turned violent, trashed buildings, bombed businesses or burnt Thailand. Businesses now - mine included - have all but stopped due entirely to reds not yellow, purple, white or blues. Comments regarding budgets for military can lead into the grey areas of the royals and cannot be discussed here.

The only stupid biased statement is your letter ! Your aptness to render myopic presupposition interpolations and blaming it all on the Reds is clear evidence of your lack of common sense in understanding the events over the past few years.

Before you or anyone else comments suggest you read this article if the Forum will kindly allow me to post it:

The End of Brand Thailand

How mismanagement and mistakes turned a high-growth democratic paradise into a violent mess.

For years Thailand was synonymous with images of paradise: it was a thriving democracy with a 1997 Constitution that enshrined protections for human rights. It was an economic powerhouse that posted some of the world's highest growth rates in the 1980s and early 1990s, withstood the late '90s Asian financial crisis, and grew by 5.3 percent in 2002 and more than 7 percent the following year, as the rebound from the crisis took shape. Investors and tourists bought into the image of a tranquil kingdom of lush beaches and mountains, welcoming people, and stable politics—a "land of smiles" so alluring, it drew more than 13 million tourists per year. Thanks in part to the "Amazing Thailand" ad campaign—featuring glittering temples and stunning women—Bangkok ranked No. 1 in readers' polls of the best cities in Asia by Travel + Leisure and Condé Nast Traveler magazines.

And now? Brand Thailand is shattered. Over the past two months, clashes in Bangkok between the security forces and protesters clad in red have killed at least 80 people, gutted some of Bangkok's most important economic institutions, including the stock exchange and the largest shopping center, and destroyed the image of peace and tranquillity. The critical tourism industry, which accounts for as much as 8 percent of GDP, is gasping, at a time when regional competitors like Cambodia and Singapore are trying to steal Thailand's visitors. Of the nations once touted as the Asian tigers, or tiger cubs, including South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, only Thailand is disintegrating. Its once vibrant democracy is now widely viewed as an ungovernable and failing state. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva seems eager to postpone elections, and the last two elected governments were tossed out by undemocratic methods anyway. In its 2010 report, Freedom House scored Thailand as only "partly free" and ranked it among thuggish regimes like Burma for political rights. The U.S. State Department, which praised Thailand in 2000 for free elections and peaceful transfers of power, now chronicles its extrajudicial killings and its limits on freedom of speech and assembly.

In part, the recent upheavals are a result of longstanding political and economic grievances that have come to a head in urban riots, pitting largely rural supporters of exiled prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra against the generally Bangkok-based and wealthier backers of Abhisit. There are deep regional and class divides at work here, but that does not mean this collapse was inevitable. In the past decade Thai leaders, like the CEOs of companies losing ground to upstart competitors, made a series of poor decisions that left their country playing catch-up to neighbors like Vietnam, China, and even Indonesia, once a basket case.

One misstep was a failure of long-term thinking. During the good years, neither Abhisit's Democrat Party nor Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai Party, which first took power in 2001, invested enough in overhauling an archaic education system, which emphasizes basic literacy and rote memorization. Taiwan, Singapore, China, and India invested in university education, English-language instruction, and higher-value skills, and as a result managed to build innovative companies with a global outlook, and sizable English-language outsourcing industries. But Thailand's government and its major business groups remained wedded to lower-value manufacturing for foreign companies. Unlike China or Singapore, the government failed to create effective incentives to help Thai companies improve their workforces and expand globally. Large Thai conglomerates, historically protected by tight ties to government leaders, moved slowly to embrace real international competition, even as Thailand inked free-trade deals with China and other Southeast Asian states.

The failure was obvious. Thailand's scores on the TOEFL exam, the test of English skills for students heading to university, now consistently rank among the lowest in Asia. No Thai-owned companies have emerged that compare with the Taiwanese computer giant Acer or the Indian IT giant Infosys. And as China gobbles up more and more low-end manufacturing, high-tech firms ignore Thailand. Intel built a $1 billion chip-assembly plant in Vietnam, a country that in the 1980s and 1990s lagged far behind Thailand. Last year Taiwanese manufacturers pledged to invest billions in Vietnam, compared with just $200 million pledged in Thailand, according to the Associated Press. Because Thailand has been unable to move into higher-value industries, and has been incapable of using government spending to prop up the economy indefinitely in an era of global financial crisis, its growth rates over the past four years have tumbled badly, from 5.2 percent in 2006 to 4.9 percent in 2007 to 2.5 percent in 2008 and minus 2.3 percent last year.

Meanwhile, Thai leaders chose not to preserve the core of its appeal to tourists. Neighboring Singapore enacted strict environmental-protection laws, and even in heavily industrialized South Korea, former Seoul mayor and current president Lee Myung-bak oversaw the replanting of millions of trees around the capital city and the cleanup of the metropolis's major stream. Thailand let one natural wonder after the next become overdeveloped by resorts and condo complexes, undercutting an important element of the Thai brand. In a 2008 report, the Washington-based National Geographic Society looked at Phuket, historically Thailand's premier island resort, and found that its "original charm as an astonishingly beautiful, unspoiled, and culturally rich destination has been completely lost."

Over the past decade Thailand's leaders failed even more miserably to preserve the peace. Thai politicians once seemed to have a unique knack for compromise. After violent clashes between the Army and demonstrators roiled Bangkok in 1992, both sides retreated, allowing a caretaker government to be formed, democracy to be put back on track, and the economy to muddle through largely unaffected. Not anymore. After big wins in the elections of 2001 and 2005, Thaksin, an autocratic CEO before entering politics, started running Thailand like the ultimate boss. He gutted theoretically independent institutions like the courts, the civil service, and the Bank of Thailand, promoting his loyalists and using public speeches to demean these institutions, which had helped stabilize Thailand for years. The opposition's response further undermined Thai institutions. Rather than fight back at the polls, opposition leaders convened massive demonstrations that ultimately sparked a coup in 2006, forcing Thaksin into exile.

Thailand had seen many coups, but most had ended in compromise. Not this time. When a pro-Thaksin government was elected again, in 2007, anti-Thaksin yellow-shirt protesters shut down Bangkok; after Abhisit's government replaced a pro-Thaksin government in 2008, the red shirts poured out into the streets in an attempt to force Abhisit to step down. The result of this incessant brinkmanship is a furious Thai population ready to explode at any change in the political status quo, making compromise much harder.

While Thai leaders were trying to centralize power in their own hands, their Asian rivals were moving the opposite way. In Indonesia, the government has devolved more authority from Jakarta, in order to tamp down local grievances. Even authoritarian China has granted greater powers to local officials. In Thailand, after the 2006 coup, leaders replaced the progressive 1997 Constitution with one that provided an amnesty for the coup leaders, made the Senate less democratic, and tried to quiet unrest by strengthening central authority in Bangkok. These decisions backfired, first by a widening of an already-spiraling insurgency in Muslim-dominated southern Thailand, and then in the red-shirt protest movement, both of which resent the growing power of Bangkok. Yet Abhisit continues to bulk up the capital, and now uses an emergency decree to restrict civil liberties and allow the security forces to crack down harshly on protest.

Can Thailand's brand be repaired? Other cities and countries have managed to restore even more seriously damaged images, though it took time. Belfast, once synonymous with IRA bombings, now has developed a reputation as an up-and-coming cultural destination. Bogotá is starting to be recognized as a model of urban planning, now that Colombia is getting control of its murderous drug cartels. But the key factor in Northern Ireland and Colombia—statesmanlike leadership—is currently absent in Thailand. Abhisit has offered to address some of the protesters' grievances, boosting government spending in the new budget by more than 20 percent and reassessing the Constitution, which might result in restoring elements of the 1997 Constitution. But his economic plan copies some of Thaksin's populist but divisive plans to redistribute wealth to the countryside. There is no serious plan to reform the education system, revive Thai competitiveness, or restore the environment. Abhisit also seems unable to do anything to reduce the power of the military, and after the current commander in chief of the Army retires in September, his likely replacement, Prayuth Chan-ocha, is known to be much harder-line. Without a true statesman, the revival of brand Thailand seems far off.

Kurlantzick is fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

http://www.newsweek....d-thailand.html (abridged )