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Sales of tours to Thailand drop in November

08:07, 31 октября 2011

Most of the central districts of Bangkok, which are traditionally popular among tourists, are free of water – that's according to Thailand's tourism authorities. Even though some areas along the Chao Praya river within the Big Bangkok have been flooded, these are mostly industrial and residential districts, usually not popular among tourists. However, taxis and the famous tuk-tuks do operate in a limited fashion in the disctricts not affected by the floods.

Thai authorities claim, the areas suffering the most severe consequences of the floods are situated along the Chao Praya river and include Bangkok and Ayutaya. While all the other tourist regions in central Thailand, including Pattaya, Hua Hin, Kanchanaburi and the Chang island were not affected and continue operating normally. The same goes for the resorts in the south of the country – Samui, Phuket, Crabi and Phang-Nga.

Meanwhile, the sharp decline of demand for Bangkok has forced Cathay Pacific Airways to cancel one of its everyday flights, connecting Hong-Kong and Bangkok (CX701/CX702). The air carrier has already confirmed cancelations on October 28th and 30th, as well as November 1st and 2nd. The rest of the airline's flights are so far operating according to schedule. Nevertheless, Cathay Pacific Airways warns, the situation may change, so new unplanned cancelations of flights are also possible. The airline calls on all customers to use caution when traveling to Thailand.

At the same time, the airline has published special recommendations on tickets with confirmed bookings which include Bangkok. The fine for re-booking has been cancelled (comes into force immediately) for all tickets, released on or before October 25th with confirmed bookings, including Bangkok, with travel dates ranging from October 25th to November 2nd.

Because of the flooding, which has hit several of Thailand’s regions, Russia's Aeroflot has also proposed to customers with tickets on the Moscow-Bangkok-Moscow flights between October 28th and November 30th, to change the departure date without any penalties and sanctions. However, this only goes for those passengers, who purchased their tickets before October 28th.

Earlier Thai Airways also decided to work in the customer's interest, proposing to everyone who had tickets from October 26th to December 15th 2011 to change the departure date without a penalty.

At the same time, neither Thai Airways, Aeroflot or Transaero changed their schedules of flights to Bangkok. According to Transaero, which constantly monitors the situation in Thailand, both main airports in Bangkok and Phuket work in an ordinary fashion. The airline claims, flights to Thailand are being conducted in their full amount and according to schedule.

Meanwhile, according to aviasales.ru, the demand for Moscow-Bangkok tickets has dropped by 33%. The search engine's founder, Konstantin Kalinov, says – usually at this time people start booking tickets for the winter holidays and this year there's a sharp decline of interest specifically in this destination starting from the last ten days of October.

The search engine also shows the decline of prices for Aeroflot, Thai Airways and other airlines' tickets. At this time tickets on the Moscow-Bangkok-Moscow route can be purchased for 23,678 roubles, while the average price is usually not cheaper than 31,344 roubles.

The fall of the demand for Thailand is registered on Russia's entire tourism market. The president of the Lanta-Tour Voyage company, Lyudmila Puchkova, told RATA-news, the flood has negatively affected the sales. «There aren't any cancelations, but there aren't any new bookings either. The sales of tours for the first half of November have slowed down. Meanwhile, the winter season and especially the holidays are being sold as usual. The New Year is practically sold out», - Puchkova explained. At the same time, she stressed, her company hasn't received any complaints from its customers who are currently in Thailand, including areas near Bangkok. «Of course, we had to reduce the sales of tours to Bangkok at some of the most critical moments and directed clients to Pattaya or the islands», - Lyudmila Puchkova said.

According to the head of one chain of tourist agencies, Sergey Agafonov, the only positive thing about the floods in Thailand is that they struck during high season. «The demand for Thailand has dropped, but I wouldn't call the decline critical. It's much easier to cope with if we look at it from the perspective of the low season when we try to redirect tourists to other similar destinations. As for the holidays, so far they've been totally unaffected», - said Sergey Agafonov.

 According to him, the situation in Bangkok is very likely to start improving in the next couple of weeks, bringing back demand: «If Thai authorities make an effort in restoring their capital, and there will be no further floods, tourists will be able to completely forget about what happened as soon as by mid-December. As for now, many decided to wait it out and see how the situation develops».

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