Flight Centre is advising those who have not yet booked their travel to Bangkok to either postpone non-essential travel or reroute to the islands of Thailand.
Flight Centre gm, Andrew Stark, affirms that Flight Centre is not recommending any cancellation of travel. “We are continually monitoring the situation and our advice relates only to travel that needs to take place within the next few days. We are not recommending any bans on travel to Thailand,” he says.
According to Stark there have been a handful of isolated cases where travellers are postponing their travel.
Tom Liangman, marketing representative of Thai Airways International South Africa, says passengers can amend their reservation to fly to the islands instead of stopping over in Bangkok if they feel insecure about the situation. He adds that refunding tickets is not recommended as the situation is “controllable by the Thai’s army”.
“We have had minor booking cancellations due to the situation in Thailand as the majority of passengers are going beyond Bangkok,” says Tom.
Andrew says: “South African travellers are very resilient and from our understanding the Thai authorities are doing whatever possible to accommodate tourists and ensure the effect of the curfew is as limiting as possible. It is unfortunate that this should shed a negative light on a destination that is so popular but we feel strongly that the trend of sharp growth in travel to Thailand will continue.”
Earlier this week the curfew instated by the army in Bangkok was relaxed to 00h00 to 04h00 from 22h00 to 05h00.
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