Articles tagged with: Thailand
Mirjam Stibbe started Barcelona-Enabled in 2010. In Spain like many countries, she says, there are initiatives that promote accessible travel. What she noticed was there was no bridge between travellers and the services Barcelona offered. Suppliers were the same, the needs of disabled visitors was overlooked.
The online travel agency, On the Beach, has conducted a survey amongst its website users (so they aren’t representative of the population as a whole or even just of online users) and has come up with some figures that should worry the British domestic travel industry. 96% of all responders said that they will spend their summer holidays abroad in 2011 and the two most frequently given reasons were the weather and that British hotels were too expensive. 70% said that a holiday in the UK was more expensive than going abroad.
The last 12 months or so have not been kind to Thai tourism. Visitors have been deterred from going there because of the deeply held views of supporters of the government and the trenchant views of the opposition. Disruption has occurred in Bangkok and some other places and there have been outbreaks of violence. The British Foreign Office recommended that visitors stay away and as that can affect some insurance policies, some will have followed that advice. Although the stand-off still exists between government and opposition, things have been quieter. Throughout this year, very few tourists have been affected even where they fly in to Bangkok.
UPDATE: 14 MAY
The headline stays the same but the advice has changed. Last night the FO advised against all travel to Bangkok in view of the increased tensions and the decision by the Thai government to remove the protestors. The British Embassy will be closed on 14 May and it’s reopening will be reviewed daily.
Our Foreign Office (FO) has modified the overall advice it gave to us not to travel to Thailand. There are still some parts that it is suggested we don’t visit but these don’t apply, in the main, to the main tourist areas. The Thai government has been at pains throughout recent weeks of demonstrations in the capital, Bangkok, to say all is fine and tourists would be unaffected.
Should we believe them?
A third of the year has gone and, as we get ready for the huge number of events being celebrated over this long week end, it is worth pausing to look at what seems to be happening to the efforts to attract us to visit destinations so far.
The impact of the Icelandic volcanic eruption is still to be felt. Will we travel abroad less because of concerns this may happen again? (I know people who are still in China some twelve days after the flight ban was lifted.) Will we view the disruption as one of those events that happen only once a lifetime and forget it as quickly as it began or will we holiday at home more? Research from TNS Research International suggests that the majority of us won’t let it affect our travel plans


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