With martial law in place in Thailand, tourists out of India are looking for alternate destinations. While Thailand has been among the top three outbound travel destinations for Indians it is not finding favour this holiday season among travellers who are opting for other countries like Singapore, Malaysia or settling for a domestic trip instead.
“Compared to how things were in January, we are expecting it to get peaceful now.Thailand has tremendous brand value but bookings have gone down this year significantly,” said Sharat Dhall, President, Yatra.com. Indian governmenthas even issued an advisory against travelling to Thailand asking alltravellers “observe basic precautions and safety measures.”
The Indian embassy advised travellers to avoid areas where protesters were camping like around government buildings, parliament building, Royal Thai Police HQ, Interior Ministry, Defence Ministry in Bangkok.
“We do notnormally issue advisories against travel. But if such a step is being takenthen it shows that matters are serious. Travel to Thailand will definitelysuffer because of tensions going on in the country for long.” Subhash Goyal,President, Indian Association of Tour Operators said.
Travel companies too are not wasting time promoting Thailand which is seeing weakdemand, except to Phuket and Pattaya. For those ready to increase their budgetsthe options are plenty including Maldives, Mauritius, Dubai etc otherwisetravel companies are seeing increased interest for domestic destinations suchas Kashmir, Andamans, Goa etc.
“We havenot witnessed any significant dip in enquiries – and the a few customers whohave expressed some concerns have opted either to defer their travel plans ortravel instead to other south-east Asian destinations like Malaysia, Vietnamand Cambodia (Laos),” said Shibani Phadkar, Senior Vice President – Products Operations, Leisure Travel (Outbound), Thomas Cook India.
Thailand has been a popular choice among tourists due to good connectivity with plenty of direct flights and easy visa norms. Over a million tourists from Indiathrong the south east destination. Thailand receives over 22 million foreign tourists annually.
The Thai tourism authority meanwhile issued a statement saying, “There is currently nocurfew in place in Bangkok or any other tourist destinations in Thailand. Localresidents and international visitors can continue to travel within Bangkok andother destinations in the country as usual.”
The tourism authority however advised air passengers to allocate at least 3-4 hours prior to their scheduled flight departure time to avoid heavy traffic on certain roads.
Thailand loses preference on travellers" list this holiday
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