Syndrome of Dodon

The latest history of Thai tourist business - this is the history of continuous ups and downs . Only the tourism industry will be able to recover from the extremely dangerous flu of sea bass when suddenly a destructive natural cataclysm will immediately appear. . Finish with a cataclysm - it will remind you of a chronic political crisis, periodically blossom with the sharp outbreaks of street confrontation . To me, the modern "roller coaster" of the tourist industry in Thailand resembles one situation described in detail in a fairy tale dear to the Russian heart of the poet A . . Pushkin: "They were waiting, from the south, - from the east climbs the army! "Therefore, for further convenience and mutual understanding, I propose to name the existing unpredictable order of phenomena in Thailand by the syndrome of King Dodon . The very same thing, from Pushkin's fairy tale . Well, then let's start .

What's new?

No matter what the so-called experts say now, this year in Thailand nothing foreshadowed trouble . In addition, much pointed out just for the presence of a variety of amenities . For example, at the very beginning of 2010 in the north of the island Phuket, Marriott company opened a new hotel Renaissance Phuket Resort & Spa, bringing the number of hotels chain Marriott in the Kingdom of Thailand to a happy figure 19 . In addition, actively began to build and open accommodation facilities in Thai resort chain of budget hotels IBIS; by the way, the launch of the seventh IBIS hotel in Thailand is due this fall (it will be the new economical Ibis Bangkok Riverside) . And while luxury and not very hotels, like psilocybin mushrooms after tropical rain, grew along the shores of the Thai seas and rivers, in the Thai direction there was a cautious palpation of opportunities for the same growth in the number of flights from Russia .

@ For the sake of justice we note that the turbulence of the tourist industry, frightened by previous periods and tour operators behaved carefully and delicately this winter . The big players did not make sharp movements, making the main bet on the flight program of the airlines "Transaero" and "Aeroflot", conquering the airspace of understandable cities with million people, such as Moscow or, say, St. Petersburg -Petersburg . Several operator companies have sat down on the silver wings of Nord Wind, making a rapid march-throw for tourists of exotic cities like Kemerovo or Irkutsk . And everything, absolutely everything would be fine and simple pastoral, if s and this year in the Thai kingdom, the development of events did not go on a completely "fabulous" scenario .

"Fairy-tale scenario" ...

Tour operators were waiting "from the south" for anything: low demand, lack of depth of sales, a complete ban on travel abroad to all residents of the Russian Federation, the mass madness of airport employees, the mysterious disappearance of all airplanes that are suitable for flying ... But everything turned out as usual when the tourist scene begins its vivid performance with the syndrome of King Dadon: the "red army" east. That is, from the various eastern provinces of Thailand.

According to various estimates, about half of Russians visiting Russia each year arrive in Thailand not the first times . Some even manage to rest here for the twentieth year in a row! In addition, recently on the beaches of Thailand was found a rare type of travelers who are not afraid of either a long flight, or the annual rainy season .However, as folk wisdom says, a warm and short tropical rain or, for example, a prolonged but not fatal flight from Irkutsk to Bangkok is one thing, but an obvious and possibly deadly force majeure is quite, completely different . @ Force majeure, as they say, not water, not a mittens: you will not shake off the white handle, and you will not shut up the belt .

... which turned into a force majeure

On the other hand, we can not say at all, that political force-majeure crept up to the tourist business of Thailand imperceptibly . The "red" opposition's speeches were announced Ana in advance, and the Thai government on March 9, three days before the start of the protest, has introduced a special security regime in the capital and six Thai provinces .Some hotels, sensing that the case smells of kerosene, even then released a number of rather extravagant special offers: for example, a five-star hotel from the island of Lanta - Rawi Warin Resort & Spa sent out a notice to the tour operators about the transfer of the hotel to the all-inclusive system for the period until mid-November 2010 . Throughout the seventy-day action of the "reds", other hotel promotions were issued, in some cases left undetected . And only now, after 37 buildings were burned in Bangkok, dozens were killed and hundreds of people were injured she, the tourist business in full voice began talking about the massive decline in hotel prices and the possible impact of the political crisis on the number of tourists coming to Thailand .

It should be noted that due to well-known events, the prices for tours to Thailand are really very much lost in weight . If in March the budget week-long tour to Pattaya with a flight from Moscow cost about 800 USD per person, now the same tour costs exactly half the time . There will be no guile and recognition of what is coming soon on us and you the real golden rain of special offers will spill, uvl who offers free spa programs hypnotizing free excursions and promising free transfers . According to the verified agency data, discounts for accommodation in some hotels this summer will reach 30%, but that's just the effect of this discount waterfall that struck our sinful heads in a strange way whim of the God of Discountos special offers, will be, to put it mildly, "crocodile" . Because exactly the same effect was achieved by the crocodile, which, if you remember, in another fairy tale by another author "the blue of the blue was extinguished with pies, and pancakes, and dried mushrooms ". In other words, no one will be able to lure any tourists to Thailand this summer .

Who is to blame?

And here we with you imperceptibly approach the most important issue of modern Russian tourist business; a question many years ago prophetically guessed by my namesake and in some way by my colleague Nikolai Chernyshevsky: "Who is to blame?" Returning to the aforementioned fairy tale about the glorious king Dadon and the story of our syndrome, I want to remind those who, by a lucky chance, suffer from amnesia, that in the Pushkin story, the Shamakhan queen was to blame. There is such a queen in our gloomy tale. This queen is Russian tour operators

And now it would be a good time to pause, eat something and take a breath. Because many of you are mistakenly considered the main culprit of the celebration to be the disgraced Thai prime minister, Mr. Thaksin Shinawatra. Or, at least, the indecisive Thai government of Mr. Abhisit Vejjajiva. Nevertheless, my dear friends, you are wrong. Of course, the impact of the recent Bangkok riots on Thailand's tourism industry is very significant

All seventy days as long as the opposition "red against the government and shops" was going on, refraining from traveling to the center of the capital it looked logical . However, let's not forget that the confrontation has already ended . And tourists are still not going to Thailand . Because the demand for tours to Thailand is now in a state of clinical death, and get him out of it can only be properly planned and implemented system of measures aimed at restoring the vital activity of the entire complex organism of demand . But the main problem is that there is absolutely no one to plan and carry out these resuscitation measures in the Russian tourist industry .. Generally , inability to work with demand is not a distinctive feature of exclusively Russian tourist business. This is a common misfortune, which has assumed the scale of a full-fledged business catastrophe in Russia, because tour operators in Russia do not know how to form demand at all. They serve it as they can. But even this is not always good for them.

From the side, work with demand is similar to that of a lazy doctor of an advanced patient: the doctor is waiting for a patient to come to him on the ad who will diagnose himself and prescribe a course of treatment

The doctor will only have to prescribe the prescription to the patient, take the money for the reception and tell him how to get to the pharmacy . Hand in hand, you yourself, would you personally go to such a doctor to be treated? That's the same . Similarly, in a doctor's way, our native tour operators . behave in relation to demand..They do not manipulate the opinion of tourists, sending them to new places, recently opened resorts like the island of Lanta or urging to fly to Thailand this summer . On the contrary! At us tourists operate work of tour operators, voting with the ruble and forming demand for those or other directions . Why so happens?

While able to pay tourists suddenly realize that in order to make a diagnosis and prescribe a course of treatment does not necessarily go to the doctor. Especially if the doctor only knows how to listen to you, opening his mouth wide, and he does not particularly take the initiative.

The principle of retribution

I will not bore you now and list here such phrases rarely used in Russian tourism as "successful viral marketing" or "manipulation of consumer opinion" . I will only say that all these strange winged words and expressions were already used decades ago our foreign colleagues in the tourist industry . I will also note that, unfortunately, even qualitatively written advertising texts or really working slogans in Russian tourism are very rare . Therefore, you can arbitrarily reduce and offer free transfers to tourists, but this measure, apart from competent marketing, will never lead to the desired result. . Because trying to work with demand in modern conditions, but with the help of obsolete tools is like building a space ship with a stone ax . That is, something may be built, but will it fly? Big question mark . Very large . And not one .

So I believe that throughout the summer discounts for tours to Thailand can reach enormous sizes. In addition, I am sure that the flight program will be corrected.

Nevertheless, despite the discounts and the forthcoming flight adjustment, the demand for tours to Thailand in Russia will be in coma until the fall . Smart experts say about the decline of the total number of tourists at 10% per year (in relation to the figure previously planned by the Thai Ministry of Tourism and Sport figure), but I can assure you that all these figures and forecasts are naturally sucked from the finger and how it will all be in reality, you do not will be able to say none expert . In addition to me, of course . And I tell you that all the prerequisites indicate this: the demand for tours to Thailand will sleep until autumn, and then it will come to life itself . And the desperate Thai hoteliers, seeing the futility of reducing prices for some time will still offer discounts, but by mid-December prices will return to the pre-crisis level, and then surpass them . Because somebody will still have to compensate the hotels for periods of dead time . And something tells me that this someone will be tourists . If, of course, the beginning of new winters his season in Thailand are not marred by the accession to the throne next syndrome king Dadon . As always, devastating for all of us an unexpected .