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The Korean government¡¯s travel advisory has wreaked havoc among Korean expatriate businesses in Thailand. A Korean who runs a travel agency in Bangkok on Sunday said his agency had some 80-120 Korean customers every day around this time last year, but the number plummeted to only two to four tourists on some days last week. ¡°The only thing I do at work these days is to take care of cancellations by Korean tourists,¡± he said.
Some 20,000 out of Thailand¡¯s 30,000 Korean expats manage tourism and related businesses like travel agencies, restaurants, golf tour companies, and souvenir shops. And their living is under threat after the travel advisory for the Southeast Asian country last Tuesday, when a state of emergency was declared in Bangkok over escalating anti-government protests.
The day after the travel advisory, Asiana Airlines¡¯ flight from Seoul to Bangkok saw only 22 percent of its 260 seats occupied, and on Friday, only 34.6 percent of the seats were filled.
Korean Air was in a similar situation. A source said only half of the seats on flights to Bangkok were filled last week. As a result, Korean Air cancelled four out of 14 weekly flights to Bangkok from Sunday through Wednesday, and Asiana three out of 10, for Sunday, Monday and Wednesday.
But a survey by Assumption University of Thailand of 532 foreign tourists from last Tuesday to Friday showed that some 73.2 percent said Bangkok was safe, while 59 percent thought the current unrest was a transitory political situation. Ninety-seven percent of respondents were planning to visit the country again and 99 percent would recommend the trips to their friends.
Korean community leaders there have called on the Korean government to do something to ease the situation, saying it was hasty to declare Thailand a dangerous region and that has done great damage to Koreans living there.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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