Todays Bangkok Post

[butterfly]

So let me get this correct, the Bangkok Post today has two reports..report one is arrivals so far in May are down 55%. Report number two is Thai Airways profits FOR MARCH are up 1.35%. Having been in the advertising and newspaper business for part of my life I guess I understand the reason for the Post to do this sillyness. The bottom line is TIT.

[Guest]

I cannot understand what is wrong with this...........the SARS epidemic started towards the end of April so arrivals in May are well down thanks to the massive panic by the media industry.

 

Profits for Thai are up in March as they were doing well until the War and SARS hit them.

 

I spent 16 years in the publishing business and this looks OK to me.

 

Uniformguy :: ::

[Guest]

Irrespective of whether the reporting is good or bad, the reality here is that the bars are far less crowded (with a few exceptions) and it is generally all round a buyer's market. Except for the weather, now is a good time to visit LOS for sanukers. ::

[Flashermac]

Front page story in the Phuket Gazette is how tourism is way down. Not one SARS case reported on the island, but tourists just aren't coming. You can easily see that in Bangkok too. I haven't seen so few punters in the bars in years, while the hotels are clearly losing money too. Oddly enough, tourism from the UK and Germany to Thailand is reported to be up. Folks flying from those countries do NOT have to travel through SARS infected countries, unlike most travellers flying from North America.

 

 

[check_bin_krap]

I think the drop in tourism certainly is SARS related. People are scared of flying, even though Thailand have not been hit by SARS.

 

VietNam have come off the WHO list. But it has not helped a lot until now. People working in hotels there are sent on leave without pay and have a tough time.

[jp1]

I can confirm that the airline industry is severely affected by the SARS virus. Airlines in Europe are losing hundred of millions of Dollars/Euros because of the very weak demand. In some locations like Beijing airlines have stopped operating or have reduced flights to one or two per week. The same goes for major airlines of the Asia Pacific region. Japan Airlines just forecasted a loss -due to SARS- in the amount of 1.5 b US$ for the current fiscal year. Bookings on flights from Europe to destinations other than China have also dropped dramatically. Right now it?s no problem at all to book a flight to Bangkok on any airline, even 24 hours prior to departure. At least in the last 10 years that has never happened.

 

Yesterday I returned from a 2 days business trip to Hong Kong. The Chek Lap Kok Airport was almost deserted. On each flight only a few passengers arrived. I came in on an ANA flight with 46 passengers onboard, most of them Chinese. There are only 5 flights per day remaining btw. Tokyo and HKG, just 20% of the flights available under normal circumstances. And the remaining flights are operated with smaller equipment. The hotel in which I?ve stayed had an occupancy rate of <10%. Most of the staff had been temporarily laid off. Hotel restaurants are closed and the coffee shop worked with a skeleton staff for a few remaining guests. Fortunately the news concerning SARS in HKG and Mainland China are encouraging. In Hong Kong only an estimated one third of the local population still wears masks and restaurants were well visited. But the tourists are missing. Everybody is aware that even after SARS it will take several months to reestablish confidence. For the tourist industry in China (incl. HKG) and SE Asia the year 2003 can be considered to be more or less a disaster?.

 

 

[jp1]

Says butterfly:

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So let me get this correct, the Bangkok Post today has two reports..report one is arrivals so far in May are down 55%. Report number two is Thai Airways profits FOR MARCH are up 1.35%. Having been in the advertising and newspaper business for part of my life I guess I understand the reason for the Post to do this sillyness. The bottom line is TIT.

---

 

Butterfly,

 

this makes sense. Up to end of March people were not that conscious about SARS. The Iraq war was still going on and SARS took a backseat in the media. The airlines had already losses in March but mainly due to the war. After the war finished the media turned to other sensational news. They found SARS. Now that SARS is on the decline in China and elsewhere (unfortunately it's on the rise in Taiwan) the media reports about SARS have left the headlines and can only be found on page 3 or 4 etc. But the damage has been done.

 

 

[cardinalblue]

SARS and much less so the war have dealt LOS a servere blow this year. With the rainy season now approaching and the lingering adverse effects that a problem like SARS can cause, the next five or six months could be quite rough for LOS.....

 

 

Cardinalblue

[Guest]

Thailand is much more used to being in a position to just sit back and let the tourists come, which as we all know they have done. But in the past couple of years the low seasons seem to be getting progressively lower, and now with SARS, it will be interesting to see how they react to maybe actually having to do something proactive to attract tourists. I'm sure this will result in them being resentful and blaming foreigners for something or another.

[Brink15]

Bangkok Post

 

27 May, 2003

 

A government task force sponsored by the Prime Minister has determined that SARS is merely a plot by the WHO to weaken Thailand's economy. Task force head, Sonomabitch Blaimyoongall, was quoted as saying "These foreign devils want to make us weak so they can finally take over our industry. But this fiendish plan will fail as Thailand does not need their tourist dollars. Tourism accounts for less than 1% of our economy. No, no, wait, less than .00001% of our economy. Yes that's it. So please disregard these news media lies. There is no SARS anywhere. Come back to Thailand to visit. Even though we don't need your tourism money we will still be happy to accommodate you in one of the 12,000 available hotel rooms in Bangkok."