The Ministry of Tourism and Sports (MOTS) is demanding that Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra do its job.

The Ministry of Tourism and Sports wants PM Yingluck to lead the MOTS campaign to recapture foreign tourists.

Ministry of Tourism and Sports Loy Krathong

A Bangkok Post article, Role for Yingluck in reviving tourism, reports that the Ministry of Tourism and Sports wants to pass the buck to the Thailand Prime Minister.

The Tourism and Sports Ministry will propose Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra lead its campaign to restore foreign tourist confidence and lift the country’s image after the flooding ends.

Why?  Is the Ministry of Tourism and Sports incapable of doing their job? The only thing that the Minister of Tourism and Sports has done during the Thailand Floods of 2011 has declared that it would not impact tourism.  Khun Chumpol was way off on that prediction.

Suwat Sidthilaw, permanent secretary to the ministry, said Thailand needed to regain tourists’ confidence immediately, especially in sensitive markets such as China and Japan.

Yes, Thailand needs to regains tourists’ confidence since the Thai Government, Department of Tourism, Ministry of Tourism and Sports, and the Tourism Authority of Thailand have done their best to ruin the confidence of tourists by posting out of date, inaccurate, incomplete, false “situation updates” throughout this disaster.

“We think their confidence will recover if our PM gives them a guarantee that Thailand still has many places to travel. We want to see Khun Yingluck talk to the international media today and tell them that Suvarnabhumi Airport is fully operational and not flooded,” he said.

This should have been done all along by the various and numerous Thailand Tourism Government Agencies.

All flights to and from Don Mueang Airport have been diverted to Suvarnabhumi, but some tourists misunderstood that Suvarnabhumi was inundated.

Simply because the news coming out of Thailand from the Thai Government Agencies has been dated, wrong, incomplete, contradictory and basically, worthless.

The ministry asked for a 4-billion-baht rehabilitation budget to restore tourism sites. It reported 160 tourism sites in 21 provinces have been damaged by the floods, totalling 360 million baht in value.

Hmmmm.  This is strange.  The Tourism Authority of Thailand has only listed a very few places that were affected by the floods.  Now, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports claims 160 tourism sites in 21 provinces are damaged?  Bullshit!

If the floods end this month, Thailand is projected to have lost 220,000 potential tourists and tourism revenue of 8.5 billion baht. If floods remain to next month, the country will lose 300,000 tourists and revenue of 12 billion.

The number are WAY HIGHER than this.  Thailand has already lost tourists in September and October and will continue to lose them in November and December.  So much for high season.  It will be in the millions of tourists and way more than 8.5 Billion baht.

If the Ministry of Tourism and Sports and the Tourism Authority of Thailand had done their job in the first place they would not have to do this damage control and push their job off on the Prime Minister.

Tags: Ministry of Tourism and Sports mots prime minister TAT tourism authority of thailand yingluck