Tourism operators say business worsens this year

BANGKOK, July 1 (TNA) – The global economic slowdown coupled with domestic political problems and the spread of the Influenza A (H1N1) have further depressed Thailand’s tourism business this year, according to a survey.

Thanawat Palavichai, Business Forecast Center director of the University of Thai Chamber of Commerce (UTCC), said the survey was conducted between June 25-29 among 412  restaurant, hotel, tourism and souvenir entrepreneurs with 60.5 per cent of the respondents saying that this year’s business is worse than last year, while 22 per cent said business remained unchanged.

Nearly half of the respondents — 47 per cent — said the tourism business had been hard hit following the outbreak of the viral epidemic.

Despite Thailand’s recession, 62 per cent said they were optimistic that tourism would revive in the first quarter of 2010, while 16 per cent said it would start recovering in the  second half.

Three out of four respondents — 76 per cent — said tourism operators are now facing a cash-flow problem and only 24 per cent said they had no problems.
 
Dwindling advance room bookings in conjunction with a decline in the number of tourists and a difficulty in obtaining loans from financial institutions are major problems attributed to the cash flow problem of the operators. (TNA)