Over a hundred Chinese citizens arrived at Beijing Capital Airport safely from Bangkok on Wednesday following Thailand's military coup on Tuesday.
Thailand's sudden bloodless military coup has had a widely negative impact on tours to Thailand. Most of Beijing's travel agencies have canceled their Thailand package tours and have begun processing refund applications. China's Foreign Ministry has warned the country's citizens to cancel tours to Thailand in the near future and travel agencies to change their itineraries.
About a thousand tourists on tours organized by travel agencies in Beijing are currently in Thailand. Their itineraries include Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket. Tours still in Thailand are told to halt their trips and return to hotels to closely monitor the situation.
Liu Jin, a manager from Beijing Kanghui International Travel Agency, said his company had six tours with over 100 tourists in Thailand when the coup took place.
"We will see how the situation goes and decide whether to abort the trips and let our customers fly back home," Liu Jin said.
Kanghui also persuaded four Thailand tours at the airport to cancel their imminent trips. Besides the aforementioned six tour parties, Kanghui has another 180-guest business travel party currently touring Phuket. The tour leader reports the island is not affected by the coup and their trip is continuing smoothly.
Another international tour operator, Caissa International Travel Agency, which has nearly 30 customers travelling to Thailand during the upcoming National Holiday, has canceled all trips to Thailand and convinced customers to choose other southeast Asian countries as destinations.
Some customers have called travel agencies to cancel their reservations for Thailand trip and ask for refunds.
Several Beijing travel agencies, including China Travel Service (Hong Kong) and Caissa International Travel Agency, have indicated they will absorb all the losses caused by cancellations.
Other travel agencies say they will wait for refund guidelines issued by the National Tourism Administration to determine how to absorb the losses.
Many customers are still disappointed even after obtaining their refunds. Many say they have prepared for their holidays for a long time and now they suddenly don't know what to do. Package tours to other countries during the National Holiday are all fully reserved and opportunities to change destinations are small.
(CRI September 21, 2006)
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