Almost 1.5m Russian Tourists Visit Thailand during 11 Months
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There has been a 33% year-on-year increase in the number of Russian tourists visiting Thailand. Even in November, despite the unrest in Bangkok, tourist flow grew 13% and amounted to 197 thousand people. It puts Russia on Thailand’s third place as regards the number of tourist arrivals, after China and Malaysia, according to the Moscow office of Tourism Authority of Thailand.
Opposition protests that have been continuing since October have not affected the tourist flow. During 11 months it has grown 21%. Still, in January the number of visiting tourists can drop.
“Demonstrations are only held in the center of Bangkok, near the government buildings,” said the representatives of the Authority. “All the sights are open during the same hours and can all be visited by tourists. However, we do not recommend visiting districts with large crowds of people. Also, in the central districts of the capital there can be traffic jams.”
All airports of Thailand are functioning as usual.
Evgeniya Khokhlova, the Head of the Thailand Department of “Vand International”, believes that although the protests in Bangkok do not threaten tourists, TV’s fear-mongering has done its job.
“Compared to the same period of the previous year, our November and December sales have fallen off,” she said. “I cannot say how much exactly, since we still have not counted. New Year dates are selling worse than usual, offers for January 7 and 11 are still unsold.”
According to the expert, there is no pronounced overabundance of people traveling to Bangkok, if only on separate dates.
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