The permanent secretary of the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, Suwat Sidthilaw, is a complete idiot.

He chaired a meeting and came up with some totally asinine ideas to “help” tourists.  The Ministry of Tourism and Sports is completely clueless.

Ministry of Tourism and Sports Thailand Floods

Here is the article in The Nation, Ministry seeks to help tourists, that displays how completely out of touch the Ministry of Tourism and Sports is with reality.

The Tourism and Sports Ministry has come up with measures to facilitate access to Suvarnabhumi Airport.

No they didn’t.  The measures already exist and as of this date, there is no issue getting to Suvarnabhumi.  The Ministry of Tourism and Sports – clueless.

The first step is for the Tourism Authority of Thailand and Thai Hotels Association to jointly check the number of tourists heading for the airport and provide transportation to Airport Rail Link Station on Makkasan Road. The State Railway of Thailand should also be alerted.

The first step is a complete FAIL.  Read this article – at the Bangkok Post – Checking out the check-in service at Makkasan – that describes the complete horror story of trying to use this rail link.  I am willing to bet that the The Ministry of Tourism and Sports has never used the station.

Here is but a small piece:

the service is available only for Bangkok Airways and Thai Airways.

Who is this going to help?  A handful of Thais?  Or, will foreign tourists traveling on other airlines be led to believe they can use this service and wind up having to scramble to get to Suvarnabhumi to avoid missing their flight.  Read the article – it is a complete nightmare.

The second step would be to provide police escort for travellers from the station to the airport, and security at Suvarnabhumi should be told to provide fasttrack immigration services.

Police escorts?  I think the Thai Police have enough to do with trying to control traffic in the flooded areas of Bangkok.  And, there is no such thing as “fasttrack immigration services” at Suvarnabhumi unless you hold a diplomatic passport.

In addition, tourist police should cooperate with airport authorities to allocate rest areas for travellers and facilitate late checkins, flight changes and other such instances.

Totally ridiculous.  The tourist police do not have the responsibility to find rest areas at the airport.  Where is the Airports Of Thailand (AOT) in all this?  Facilitating late check ins and flight changes are the responsibility of the individual and the airline personnel and the tourist police would be more of a hindrance than a help.

Tourism and Sports Ministry’s permanent secretary Suwat Sidthilaw, who chaired a meeting on Wednesday during which these measures were agreed upon, said TAT data showed that as of October 27, tourist attractions in 20 provinces have been affected by the floods.

Again, the Tourism Authority of Thailand is providing “situation updates” that are way out of date.  In this case, nine days old.  And, no list of what attractions in what provinces.  Totally worthless information, as usual.  I wonder who this idiot permanent secretary met with so I could see who else belongs to this idiotic group.

Though October marks the beginning of high season, arrivals have dropped from the daily peak on October 1 of 40,528 to 22,197 on October 31.

I have no idea where these numbers came from.  Tourist arrivals are down – but they are at approximately 5oK-60K per day at Suvarnabhumi.  Maybe these numbers are actually the truth and not the bullshit that the Department of Tourism, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, and the Tourism Authority of Thailand puts out every month.

Tags: department of tourism flood makkasan Ministry of Tourism and Sports suvarnabhumi tourism authority of thailand