Thailand’s tarnished image abroad: Thai tourism in decline

Thailand's tourist industry is struggling. Last year we watched with astonishment as three months of protests and the unopposed occupation of Bangkok's Government House culminated in a week-long siege of the country's main airport, Suvarnabhumi, as the police stood by and did absolutely nothing. Tens of thousands of visitors were stranded by the yellow-shirt (then) anti-government PAD movement’s actions. This single event did immense harm to Thailand’s international image. This year it has been the turn of the red-shirted pro-Thaksin DAAD supporters, with clashes in the street that led to the humiliating cancellation of SE Asia’s ASEAN summit, planned for Pattaya. Regular political upheavals have reinforced a natural reluctance to visit a country which seems prone to a succession of natural disasters and man-made clangers. Thailand has had a bird flu scare, a plane crash in Phuket, the tsunami. There are regular accounts in the international press of the arrest and imprisonment of Westerners; extremely harsh penalties are sometimes imposed for what can appear to foreign observers, unfamiliar with Thailand's culture and laws, to be minor misdemeanours. Examples? Taking a beer mat from a bar, eating a doughnut on the way to a 7-11 supermarket check-out, contravening the severe lese majeste laws (for example by not standing up in a cinema during the pre-film national anthem). As a Brit, should you be rude about your own royal family during a flight to Bangkok, in the earshot of someone who takes these issues seriously, you could find yourself under arrest on arrival. The maximum lese majeste penalty for disrespectful comments about foreign royalty is two years’ imprisonment. Wherever you make them in the world.

Few customers, plenty of pollution in Chiang Mai...

On top of all this, even if limited progress has been made, Thailand still has a reputation for rampant corruption. Foreigners can feel they are tiptoeing on eggshells through some mystifying rules and regulations, and to cap it all, they appear to be somewhat 'flexible' according to occasionally rather questionable decisions and interpretations by individual officials. And it's hardly rare for an official to need an 'unofficial' payment to smooth the way...

It's dead at the Chiang Mai Saloon, on Loi Kroh Road in Chaing Mai. (The guy in red is the owner)

All serve to instil doubts into would-be travellers about the risks involved in visiting Thailand. Many seasoned travellers and long-term expats are able to come to terms with certain idiosyncrasies, which effectively boil down to respecting the Thai way of life. But expecting first-time visitors to be able to do the same? More than a little optimistic.

Things could well get worse before they get better. More political demonstrations are planned from late June. There have been rumours of one new Chiang Mai hotel being down to 10% occupancy. Bars and tourism-related businesses are closing left, right and centre. Ok this is the start of the low season, but even so. Sterling, the euro and USD are still weak compared to a few years ago, and there is little sign of Thailand's central bank relaxing its strong baht policy. Before the financial crisis began to bite, certain middle- and high-end hotel rates were rising well above inflation rate. Dwindling numbers of tourists that are still coming to Thailand are being more careful with their money. Other countries seem to be doing a better job of marketing their tourist industries, especially those S.E. Asian countries that are now selling themselves as family destinations, eating into what not so long ago seemed to be Thailand's monopoly of the tourist market in this part of the world. Bali, the Philippines, Cambodia, Malaysia and Vietnam are all making significant inroads into Thailand’s former share.

Thailand’s image has also been tarnished by accounts of high pollution in the Chiang Mai region as well as Bangkok, and endless traffic jams in its capital city. The pristine beaches and undeveloped islands of twenty years ago are a fading memory.

The town hall in Malaucene, Provence, France. The mill workers are fighting the closure of a five centuries old business, but it seems to be a lost cause...

The worrying economic situation on a global level is just exacerbating the problem. As an example just today in my little village of 2,750 people in the Provencal backwaters of France, workers from the sole industrial business in the area of any size were desperately trying to persuade the Schweitzer-Mauduit Group, American owners of Malaucene's five centuries old paper mill since 1920, not to make the final 211 employees redundant and close the mill altogether. The machines already stopped turning on April 1st of this year; some April Fool’s joke. A little piece of history, this mill has been producing paper using water from the Grozeau spring since 1545 - the oldest mill in France. A sign of how bad things are, that a business that has operated non-stop for almost five centuries is closing. And surprise, surprise – Schweitzer-Mauduit opened a 100 million dollar mill in China in 2005, making exactly the same product. The writing was on the wall. Industrial production was being moved from the West to Asia and a ready supply of cheap labour, long before the economic crisis began to bite.



Thailand has long been a popular destination for the French. A stagnating European economy will see a sizeable proportion of holidaymakers saving money and choosing to vacation much nearer to home. Some of those thinking of retirement to the Land of Smiles are now looking at different alternatives. A couple of years ago the owner of the Ad’Hoc pizzeria in Vaison la Romaine was convinced that Thailand was the place for him. Tucking into a ‘pizza royale’ there on Wednesday, he was much less enthusiastic. The euro… pollution… violence on the street… unstable politics... all came up in the course of a brief conversation, all issues raised by le patron, first.

Still on a French theme, there are some similarities between Thailand and France - the latter is also rather complacent about its value as a tourist destination. A case in point, winter sports vacations. France once held a virtual monopoly on the mass ski tourism business on their side of the Atlantic, with unrivalled infrastructure combining with natural resources and competitive prices to leave challengers far behind. But little by little less obvious ski tourism countries (eg Bulgaria, Russia), have been building up their appeal, and are starting to offer more competitive packages. To the point that some French resorts are now seriously feeling the pinch. A bit late now to think about investment in marketing, renewing infrastructure, making prices more competitive, with an increasing number of former clients having already voted with their ski boots, sliding off to considerably less expensive white slopes elsewhere. France is beginning to learn that size and even reputation isn’t everything. You have to be able to keep it up, and there are some younger and hungrier suitors out there.

Although regular travellers to the more exotic destinations are a resilient bunch, a major part of the global tourism market targets first-time visitors rather than returnees. These are considerably more fickle – it takes one worrying event, and a country can be quickly crossed off the list of possibilities.

It's the extra-low, low season in Pattaya - photo by MyThailand.com

Any positive signs from Thailand in response to the crisis? We have seen a few commercial gestures sponsored and marketed by TAT, the official Thai tourist board. Plenty of hand-waving from government officials and politicians. But the suspicion remains that Thailand will as ever muddle through, mai pen rai style. Tomorrow’s another day…

Edit 13.06.2009: Personal Thailand has some interesting facts on corruption taken from the recent NACC study

Edit 13.06.2009: Bangkok Blogger has a great post on the nitty gritty survival problems of ordinary Thais because of the current lack of tourists, and some quite astonishing personal anecdotes from his last week around the Big Mango... click her for "Bar Girls, Restaurant Girls, and Laundry Girls"

thai tourism thai politics thailand recession global tourism france tourism winter sports