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THAILAND. Deputy Prime Minister Olarn Chaipravat has warned that inbound tourism could halve next year as a result of the stranding of an estimated 100,000 international travellers by political protests at Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang airports in Bangkok.
The closure of Suvarnabhumi Airport – the country’s major gateway – entered its seventh day today.
“The closures have severely affected the tourist industry,” Olarn told reporters. The Deputy Prime Minister said he expected tourism arrivals to fall to 13.5 million this year from 14.5 million in 2007 because of the political crisis of recent months, culminating in the events of the past week.
“Next year foreign tourist arrivals may fall by half, and about a million people may be jobless if we don’t have any measures to help them,” he said.
While that is probably an overly gloomy prognosis – Thailand’s tourism industry has historically bounced back quickly from crisis – no-one doubts that incalculable damage is being done to the country’s image and its tourism sector.
Plans to airlift passengers home have begun after protestors agreed to allow pilots to fly passenger-less planes to other Thai airports. According to local reports, some 88 planes are to be flown to those facilities, from where some of the stranded tourists will be able to depart.
Protestors linked to the People’s Alliance for Democracy have so far ignored government and police orders to leave the airports. Suvarnabhumi Airport General Manager Serirat Prasutanond told Reuters that restarting the airport will take at least a week from the end of the sit-in.
That suggests the airport will be closed until at least 11 December, which is certain to have a major impact on the key Christmas tourist season.
The Thai News Agency said that the crisis is threatening Thailand’s tourism- and export-driven economy with billions of dollars worth of damage. It estimated that the shutdown is costing airport authorities as much as THB50 million baht (US$1.4 million) in income each day, with almost 60,000 incoming tourists being kept away on a daily basis.
Bank of Thailand Chief Economist Amara Sriphayak said on Friday that the tourist sector could lose THB140 billion in revenues next year, or 1.5% of GDP, if the crisis continues to the end of the year.
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