Flood didn’t scare off the Russians from Thailand
Severe flood in Central and Northern Thailand is almost over. The areas affected by the “high water” are quite far away from tourist resorts, so it’s not posing any threat to holidaymakers. However, according to tour operators interviewed by RATA-news, there hasn’t been any threat in the first place.
Some tourists’ alarm reaction was caused by negative media coverage of the disaster by central TV-networks. They kept on threatening people with the footage of flooded Bangkok again and again. This is the only reason for the stop of sales in the first two weeks of November – says Director General of PAKS Company Mr. Vitaly Chizhikov – The market is now restoring, the sales are up to one week deep. Before that the demand was mostly governed by special offers. Now the market sees the flood as history; bookings are gaining momentum; prices are coming back to normal.
Tez-tour Company also reports a slight downturn of the demand for Thailand. At that, the sales go on – last-minute, New Year and Christmas holidays – says the company’s PR-Director Ms. Marina Makarkova: “The aftermath of the flood have been severely exaggerated as usual. Now, when the media has lost its interest in Thailand, the demand will come back to its normal state for the season”.
Some operators haven’t even noticed any changes with the sales. Van Bork Company reports only two clients who decided to postpone their trips after the peak of media coverage of the disaster. The company’s Director General Mr. Viktor Leontyev points out that “it was us who suggested that our concerned clients should leave for their holiday two weeks later than planned, just for them to feel safer”. One of the company’s members of staff came back from Bangkok in the middle of “media attack” to tell how much she was surprised to see the real picture in Thailand’s capital.
Nevertheless Thailand’s Statistics Department’s data show that not too many Russians believed that visiting one of the most popular winter destinations is dangerous. In October Thailand’s beaches welcomed around 60 thousand Russian tourists, which is just 4.5% less compared to October 2010. During the same period Thailand was visited by almost 50 thousand British (-26%), slightly over 41 thousand Germans (-10.8%) and 29 thousand French (-12%) tourists. The total number of foreign tourists in October was around 920 thousand people, which is 30% less compared to the same period of the previous year.
In January-October 2011 Thailand welcomed a total of 14.5 million foreign tourists, which is 14.7% more than in the same period in 2010. The number of Russian visitors reached almost 728 thousand (+68%), second place went to the Brits – 649 thousand (-1%) and Germany kept the third place with 478 thousand people (+0.13%).