Monday 1 December 2008
Bangkok Feeling the Pain of Isolation
The Four Seasons hotel has taken French oysters and artichokes off the menu. Frustrated orchid growers cannot export their flowers, so they are selling them on the local market for one-third the price. And FedEx is no longer the world on time, not when the package is stuck in crisis-struck Thailand.
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Bangkok Feeling the Pain of Isolation
By Thomas Fuller
1 December 2008
BANGKOK: The Four Seasons hotel has taken French oysters and artichokes off the menu. Frustrated orchid growers cannot export their flowers, so they are selling them on the local market for one-third the price. And FedEx is no longer the world on time, not when the package is stuck in crisis-struck Thailand.
Nearly a week after protesters besieged Bangkok’s international airport, the Thai capital is feeling the sting of aeronautical isolation.
The closures of Suvarnabhumi Airport and its smaller domestic counterpart, Don Muang, are not leaving anyone hungry. Thailand is largely self-sufficient for basic food needs.
But the crisis is devastating the tourism industry. The head of the Tourism Authority of Thailand expects business to be worse than it was after the 2004 tsunami. And other businesses, especially exporters, are desperate to find alternatives to what they took for granted for years - a functioning airport.
The Tourism Council of Thailand, a group representing the industry, estimated on Monday that 300,000 foreigners were stranded in Thailand.
That number is higher than the government’s estimate of 240,000, but both numbers take into account that around 40,000 foreign visitors usually leave the country every day and only a small fraction are making it out.
If the airports reopen soon - a dim prospect given the determination of protesters who reinforced their numbers at the airport sit-ins Monday - tourist arrivals in the country are expected to drop off in what would normally be the busiest time of year.
“At the moment there are hardly any incoming passengers, very few,” said Pornthip Hiranyakij, secretary general of the Tourism Council. “I’ve been in the travel industry for 30 years, and I’ve never seen it as bad as this.”
At a time when the economy was already showing signs of a slowdown, the closure of the airports is squeezing businesses in Thailand that would normally export products like mangos, asparagus, flowers and electronics, among many others. Thailand is one of the world’s largest food exporters.
DHL and FedEx, both of which have large operations in Bangkok, both say they cannot guarantee delivery times to destinations outside the country.
Food distributors and supermarkets are reporting shortages of fruits and vegetables imported from more temperate climates - strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, cauliflower, celery, spinach and avocados, among them - as well as yogurt, cheeses and other dairy products imported from New Zealand, Australia or Europe.
Bangkok’s many Japanese restaurants have been particularly hard hit because of their reliance on fresh imported fish.
Much of the food imports blocked by the airport seizures are luxuries of the globalized economy and consumed mainly by the Thai elite and foreigners. But they are important for a country that sells itself as a haven of pampering, relaxation and great restaurants.
“I would expect avocados to become a problem,” said Malcolm Omond, director of food and beverage at the Four Seasons, one of the many luxury hotels in Bangkok. In addition to oysters, the hotel has run out of artichokes and eggplant.
“If people keep on drinking - and they don’t have much else to do these days - some wines might not last that long,” Omond said.
The crisis has left food bound for Bangkok stranded in a number of airports across the globe. A shipment of 1,000 live Canadian lobsters was stuck at the Hong Kong airport and eventually flown back to Canada, according to Nuntiya Hameunggull, general manager of Gourmet One, a food distributor that ordered the crustaceans.
A container filled with fish, French cheeses, foie gras, many types of berries and a large white truffle worth $4,000 was stranded at Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris last week. All the contents were sold off in France except the truffle, which was for a party in Bangkok on Dec. 7 and was flown to Malaysia and driven to Bangkok by van up the Malay Peninsula and through Thailand, a distance of 1,500 kilometers, or 930 miles.
(Some disk drives and semiconductors, decidedly less glamorous cargo, are being shipped out using the same route.)
Nuntiya says she is trying to have salmon from Tasmania imported into the country through U-Tapao, the military airport two hours outside Bangkok that is now running well beyond capacity.
“We’re going to ask them to put a little more ice than usual,” Nuntiya said.
Supermarket managers predict that shelves will be emptied of many types of air-flown fruits and vegetables soon.
“Our fresh products on the shelf will be finished within a week,” said Surasak Suthusaknawin, the deputy manager at a Villa supermarket in Bangkok, a chain that caters to wealthy Thais and foreigners.
Amid reports of layoffs at hotels and other tourist-related industries, some Thais are showing their frustration.
A large sign erected near a popular beach on the resort island of Phuket said: “Save the nation, save tourism. Please stop shutting down the airports - the people of Phuket.”
Siriporn Manoharn, governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, said the airport closure had created the “worst crisis since the tourism industry was established” five decades ago. “Even the tsunami was over in just one day,” she told the Thai Rath newspaper.
Pornthip of the Tourism Council of Thailand said she expected 30 to 40 percent of tourists to cancel the vacations for the coming holiday season.
Hotel occupancy, normally around 85 percent this time of year, is now somewhere around 60 percent, she estimated.
“But that’s also because foreigners can’t go home,” she said.
Janesara Fugal contributed reporting from Bangkok.
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