30% Drop In Visitors On The Cards

30% drop in visitors on the cards

BANGKOK: Tourist arrivals, particularly from Asian and European Union countries, are expected to drop by 20-30 per cent as a result of the bird-flu crisis, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) said yesterday.

Thanet Petchsuwan, public relations director of TAT, said the tourism industry would be directly affected by an announcement by the World Health Organisation that the virus could be spread between humans.

“About 20 per cent of tourists have cancelled package tours to Thailand in the past few days,” he said.

“The situation will cause Thailand to lose 180,000 tourists this month.”

The cancellations to date are mainly from tourists from China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.

Wichit Prakobkosol, president of the Thai-China tourist operators’ association, said some Chinese tourists had cancelled trips to Thailand.

“If the situation continues, it will hit the industry hard. If the bird-flu outbreak takes longer to control, more Chinese tourists will cancel trips to Thailand,” Wichit said.

The epidemic has also prompted a decline in tourists from the European Union, particularly after two German tourists were suspected of catching the virus after returning from Thailand.

TAT’s overseas offices have reported 20-per-cent cancellations from Hong Kong, 30 per cent from China and 20 per cent from South Korea.

Meanwhile, Vietnam’s tourism industry – still recovering from last year’s Sars epidemic – is already beginning to see negative effects from this year's bird-flu outbreak, tour operators said yesterday.

More than 700 tourists from Japan, Europe and the United States cancelled trips to Vietnam in the past two weeks, according to officials at SaigonTourist and Fiditour, two of the country’s largest tourism companies.

“We have just recovered from Sars and have seen a 14-per-cent increase in tourist arrivals. With the outbreak of bird flu, we expect more difficult times ahead,” said Nguyen Xuan Thien from SaigonTourist’s marketing department.

About 500 tourists, mostly from Japan and a few from Europe and the US, cancelled planned trips, accounting for nearly 20 per cent of the company’s business last month, he said.

--The Nation, AFP 2004-02-03