A Bloomberg report has said that Thailand, rather unsurprisingly, may struggle to meet its target of attracting 15.7 million tourists this year amid the current political turmoil.
Airlines and hotels had reported cancellations after Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej imposed a state of emergency last week. The report added that Thailand’s economic growth slowed for the first time in more than a year last quarter and the central bank expects the expansion to ease further in the second half as protests keep investors away.
“We have done ourselves in by worsening the situation with protests and the state of emergency,” Apichart Sankary, President of the Association of Thai “The global economy has already delayed travel decisions. If the situation can’t be resolved by the middle of this month, we will lose a lot of tourists.”
Thai Airways International had said it had received cancellations from travellers in Asia, which make up about 10-15% of its sales.
“Most came from passengers in Asia such as China, South Korea and Singapore,” according to Apinan Sumanaseni, President of Thai Airways. This comes as a blow to Thailand, which was targeting more short-haul Asian visitors to make up for the downturn in long-haul travel caused by high air fares and the global economic slowdown. However Apinan added that he hasn’t seen any cancellations from European bookings as yet, despite travel advisories being issued by the governments of several of Thailand’s key European source markets, such as the UK and Sweden.
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