BANGKOK, 2 September 2015, – Minister of Tourism and Sports Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul is confident that the bombing at the Ratchaprasong Intersection on July 17th will only affect tourism temporarily.
Ms. Kobkarn expects the repercussion of the incident to last only a couple of months at the most. According to her, accommodation booking dropped 10 percent immediately after the incident. However, it has jumped by 20 percent for September, with reservation for October expected to increase by 30 percent.
She is strongly convinced that Thailand will still be able to attract 28.8 million tourists, generating up to 2 trillion baht for the tourism industry, as earlier targeted.
She attributed the strong forecast figure to the government’s reliable security measures and the recent news that the suspects have been arrested.
