The positive global publicity generated by last year’s 60th anniversary of His Majesty the King’s accession to the throne was a major contributing factor for the tourism industry, as it recorded 13.82 million visitor arrivals – more than 20 per cent higher than in 2005.
At the same time, however, arrivals were affected by the September military coup, although the relatively peaceful nature of the change in government mitigated any serious long-term effects, the Tourism Authority of Thailand said this week…
…TAT governor Phornsiri Manoharn said there was little doubt that the massive global publicity generated by His Majesty’s 60th year on the throne, plus the Royal Flora Ratchaphruek in Chiang Mai, went a long way towards presenting a positive image of Thailand worldwide…
…This year, according to Phornsiri, the post-tsunami growth rate of 20 per cent is unlikely to be matched, which should give the country a golden opportunity to adjust many of the tourism policies and marketing strategies in line with the sufficiency-economy principles of His Majesty.
- Extracted from: “Celebrations result in bumper year”, The Nation, 6 April 2007.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Pig Latin // Apr 9, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Maybe they are trying to get more regional tourists with the sufficiency approach. If your Cambodian, touring Thailand can be quite expensive! How gracious of this Mr Majesty!
2 Jon Fernquest // Apr 9, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Hopefully the new apparoach to tourism will include ***paying attention to what is actually happening*** .
One of the most disturbing growing trends is ***pay-to-be-a-volunteer tourism***.
On the surface it looks good. Why would altruistic motives ever be questioned?
For example, some expat runs a website out of his Phuket beach flat to sell volunteer experiences around Thailand to tourists.
Sometimes, the volunteer work is legitimate, often it’s a bogus project created to get the tourist’s money, sometimes the unqualified tourist actually does profit making work for the so-called NGO. Sometimes even, the tourist volunteers are sent on contract to teach children in local schools. All without a work permit or work visa!
Why would a tourist pay to work, instead of getting paid to work?
Last week word of a European tourist-volunteer bragging about having sex with his teenage (apparently high school) students, passed through the grapevine in the provincial town I live in.
IMHO The tendency to use tourism as a solution to every problem, including education, not only seems simplistic, a little fishy, but also, in some cases, extremely dangerous.
3 Jon Fernquest // Apr 9, 2007 at 5:05 pm
More seepage from the tourism sector into the education sector: ***former bar owners who get hired by universities as lecturers***, cases that slip past the HR departments of universities with very high employee turnover, without any sort of tenure for foreign lecturers, disturbing because “bar” in Thailand is often synonymous with “intermediary for prostitution.”
4 attractions » Comment on Sufficiency tourism on the way by Jon Fernquest // Apr 9, 2007 at 8:59 pm
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptSometimes, the volunteer work is legitimate, often it’sa bogus project created to get the tourist’s money, sometimes the unqualified tourist actually does profit making work for the so-called NGO. Sometimes even, the tourist volunteers … [...]
5 Pig Latin // Apr 9, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Actually Jon, I did that (paid to work) in Nepal. I was naive and it had a lot to do with my mother (haha), but it was the most corrupt thing I’ve ever witnessed first hand. I was seeing kids who’d worked in carpet factories and brothels every day, while the people who ran the organisations lived in 22 room houses and only occupied 3. One is a daughter of a former Prime Minister. When I went out for dinner with the ‘administrators’ they’d use their ‘work’ as social fuel. I left after a month, but was meant to stay for 3. Good experience though.
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