What’s With Thailand?
At this time of the year thousands of Canadians have booked their travel arrangements to Thailand, the southeast Asian country that’s beautiful, cheap and has hundreds of miles of beaches. However, this year a public protest has forced the Thai government to close the airports and suspend flights.
This prompted angry tourists, who were stranded in an airport terminal surrounded by demonstrators, to stay where they were. All the while the world was watching the scenes on all major networks as Thai resorts and luxury hotels are getting ready for their peak travel season. With this situation getting out of hand the multi-billion dollare tourist season is in serious jeopardy.
The protesters want the resignation of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawa, a man whose main support comes from the rural areas and who the protestors complaint does not represent all the people of Thailand. The protest is slowly fizzling . . . for now. But what about in January? Or February?
With the world traveler suddenly getting cold feet about going to non-traditional places like India and Peru the mainstays like Thailand are becoming unstable because their government structures are unraveling. And add to this the economic instability and soon people will stay close to their own borders rather than risk being stranded anywhere.
Remember the tsunami? Well, the travel industry was just getting over the effects and now the Thai incident flies in the media and a dinghy-full of gunmen has one of the largest cities in the world, Mumbai, in sheer terror.
The point is, with the thousands of flights going to destinations every year the chances of tsunmais, terorosts and angry protesters is quite miniscule. It’s just that the media brings it right into the travel agencies. Let’s hope some Great White Sharks don’t begin a feeding frenzy off the shores of Nova Sotia or thousands of camera crews will descend upon us and beam the pictures all over the world. And then watch the tourism dry up!
The people of Thailand have proved their point. I don’t think this will happen again because they cannot afford an economic collapse even if they hate the leader. Look for more strikes in June.
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