Thailand chaos scares away Vietnamese travelers

     The escalating chaos in Thailand has scared away many Vietnamese travelers, as several travel companies in HCMC have canceled or postponed their tours to the neighboring country.
Vietravel aborted its first tour to Thailand on Monday, or one day after the Thai government declared state of emergency in Bangkok and surrounding areas to scope with political uncertainties in Bangkok, sparked by anti-government protests in the country. Meanwhile, TST Tourist said it would postpone its first tour to the country scheduled for tomorrow.
Tran Doan The Duy, outbound director of Vietravel, told the Daily on the phone on Monday that the company had decided not to take 35 Vietnamese to Bangkok given the happenings since protesters forced the cancellation of a regional Asian summit in Pattaya.
“We will wait and see the situation in Bangkok until at least after Wednesday before we decide whether to resume tours to Thailand or not,” Duy said. “This will affect more than 150 people who have booked tours at Vietravel.”
Lai Minh Duy, general director of TST Tourist, told the Daily that his company would wait until Friday to see how the situation in Bangkok would improve before sending Vietnamese guests to Thailand.
Duy said that TST Tourist would postpone tours for at least three groups of guests to Thailand, including a group of 19 guests who had planned to leave for the country today and some 14-16 people on Thursday.
Duy said the postponement would affect plans of TST Tourist to organize tours to Thailand as his company already arranged one group of Vietnamese visitors to Thailand every day for the Songkran Festival or New Year Festival taking place in the country from April 13 to 15.
Duy added Vietravel arranged tours to Thailand for 17,000 Vietnamese people last year and more than 5,000 in the first quarter of this year.
On Monday afternoon, Saigontourist Travel Service Co. still sent 20 guests to Thailand though five individuals of this group canceled their participation by themselves as they were concerned about violence in Bangkok.
Lam Tu Khoi, deputy manager of Saigontourist’s Outbound Department, confirmed with the Daily about Vietnamese visitors leaving for Thailand. On top of that, he said some 90 guests of the company were now in Thailand and visited tourist sites there as planned.
Khoi said all the guests of Saigontourist in Thailand had been informed of the situation and been advised to stay at their hotels in Bangkok at night to avoid any inconvenience for them.
Khoi said Saigontourist had also received queries about Thailand’s situation from guests who had booked tours to that country for their holidays on the occasion of Vietnam’s reunification celebration on April 30 and International Labor Day on May 1.
Saigontourist is closely monitoring what is happening in Thailand and is waiting for any guidance from the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and the Vietnam National Administration of Vietnam (VNAT).
Pichai Raktasinha, director of the TAT office in HCMC, was unable to reach on Monday as he flew to Bangkok last week. But, he told the Daily earlier that he was optimistic about the Vietnamese market this year as visitors to Thailand from this market kept growing last year, when Thailand had to deal with political unrest sometime.
International media quoted Tourism Council of Thailand Chairman Kongkrit Hiranyakit as saying that the country would lose around US$5.6 billion because of the political uncertainties coupled with the global economic crisis.
Apichart Sankary, president of the Association of Thai Travel Agents, said the aim of Thailand’s tourism industry for 14 million international visitors this year would turn out to be a hard nut to crack if the political unrest was not settled soon.