More good news on China tourist front
>>When the Chinese government announced it would allow overseas group tours to resume to 20 countries including Thailand from Feb 6, it brought mixed reactions.
While some welcomed the good news that international tourists would increase, others were wary of the bad news that Covid-19 might spread.
Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul believes China’s new tourism policy will benefit Thailand’s tourism and economy.
He is also confident Thailand will contain the possible spread of Covid-19, said deputy government spokeswoman Traisuree Taisaranakul yesterday.
Mr Anutin said outbound group tours from China will proceed step by step in an initial pilot phase and with strict regulations imposed on both Chinese travellers and tour agencies, said Ms Traisuree.
The government believes any influx of Chinese group tours will not affect the country’s Covid-19 controls.
Chinese tour agencies must follow Covid-19 control measures in countries where their customers visit, while Chinese visitors are being warned to get a Covid-19 test before leaving and pay attention to their health safety while travelling overseas, Ms Traisuree said.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha last week said he had received good news from the government of China that Thailand will be the first country to receive Chinese tourists in the pilot outbound group tour phase, which he appreciated.
The anticipated return of Chinese visitors to Thailand this year will be different in terms of both quantity and quality, said Tanes Petsuwan, deputy governor for international marketing in Asia and South Pacific of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).
Tourism income associated with the return of Chinese tourists will also be higher than that recorded in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, he said.
At that time, approximately 11 million Chinese tourists visited Thailand for the entire year and 531 billion baht in tourism income was generated, he said.
Those tourists spent 7.8 days on average in Thailand and each spent on average 6,118 baht a day during their stay or approximately 47,723 baht per person per trip, he said.
Now five of TAT’s offices in China — in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Kunming — are implementing a tourism strategy called “China is Back” starting with a tourism campaign called “Two Lands, One Heart”.
The TAT now expects at least 5 million Chinese tourists to visit Thailand this year, he said.
“Thailand has become Chinese tourists’ dream destination following the Thai government’s favourable reaction to China’s reopening,” he said.
During Chinese New Year, Thailand expects to welcome about 30,000 Chinese tourists from Jan 19-27, said TAT governor Yuthasak Supasorn said.
He said international arrivals are expected to number over half a million, a 1,622% increase over the same period of last Chinese New Year.
TAT expected 29,400 mainland Chinese tourists to arrive during this Lunar New Year, with this demographic being the primary target for the holiday period.
“In 2023, the number of Chinese tourists and the income generated from them during Chinese New Year will see a small recovery,” said the governor.
Before group tours arrive, some popular tourist destinations including Yaowarat and the Erawan shrine in Bangkok have reported a small number of Chinese visitors from the mainland.
Achan Chen Jiefu, a monk at Wat Mangkon Kamalawat, Bangkok’s largest Chinese Buddhist temple, said there are not many mainland Chinese visitors.
He added that during the Lunar New Year, many Chinese might want to celebrate at home. Larger groups of visitors are expected to come around March and April for the Songkran Festival.
Another Chinese tourist attraction, the Erawan Shrine, has not seen the arrival of large numbers of tourists from mainland China, said 51-year-old Chookiat Kaewfa Charoen, the shrine receptionist. But after next month, things should improve.
To mark this weekend’s Chinese New Year celebrations for Year of the Rabbit it seems appropriate to dedicate today’s column to our cuddly cottontail friends, otherwise known as bunnies. Let’s hope not too many of them end up in a pie or stew. As a precaution, just be careful when you order “today’s special”.
As a child in the 1950s listening to the BBC radio’s Children’s Favourites I recall one of the most requested songs was Run, Rabbit Run! performed by Flanagan and Allen. It had a simple but catchy tune and featured a farmer trying to shoot bunnies. The lyrics included “Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run/ Don’t give the farmer his fun, fun, fun/ He’ll get by, without his rabbit pie/So run , rabbit….”
It came out just as WW2 started in 1939 and became a hugely popular number amongst British troops and civilians who adapted the lyrics to “Run, Adolf, run, Adolf run, run, run”.
The song still pops up in anything from advertisements for breakfast cereals to horror films.
Perhaps the best popular rabbit song was White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane released in 1967 on the Surrealistic Pillow album. Written and sung by Grace Slick there are plenty of references to Lewis Carroll characters including Alice chasing the White Rabbit, with the dormouse and the hookah-smoking caterpillar also being featured.
A rabbit called Roger
Possibly the best rabbit-oriented film was the 1988 production Who Framed Roger Rabbit which featured some brilliant acting from Bob Hoskins, but it took its toll. Hoskins admitted that eight months of talking to an imaginary cartoon rabbit “screwed up my brain”, leading to him suffering major hallucinations. Well after filming ended he was still seeing cartoon weasels and rabbits everywhere.
More recently was Peter Rabbit based on the character created by Beatrix Potter. This 2018 film was entertaining but criticised for straying too far from the books. One reviewer complained, “Peter goes from likably cheeky chap to sneering sadist”.
Then there was the 1978 animated film Watership Down, adapted from the novel by Richard Adams. It follows the adventures of a group of rabbits who are forced to move from their warren to Watership Down which is actually a real hill in Hampshire. It also includes an Art Garfunkel song, Bright Eyes that topped the charts in 1979.
Two-legged bunnies
It would be remiss not to mention Playboy’s Hugh Hefner, a man who made a fortune from women dressed as rabbits with cotton tails, bow ties and generous cleavage.
If not for Hefner we would never have experienced that splendid scene in Bridget Jones’s Diary when the unfortunate Bridget shows up at what she thought was a fancy dress party dressed as a Playboy bunny, floppy ears and all. She walks into the garden only to discover it was no longer fancy dress but a formal hi-so affair.
Bridget’s understandable reaction: “Oh, Holy Jesus!”
The drowning rabbit
My late maid Yasothon briefly had a pet rabbit when we were living on Sukhumvit Soi 49, a low-lying area prone to flooding. Late one night I was coming home from work and everywhere was badly flooded after a huge rainstorm. No taxis would take me and I had to settle for a tuk-tuk. But the floods proved too much and the driver dumped me a kilometre from my residence.
The floodwaters were rapidly rising so I waded down the soi not in the best of moods. I was particularly concerned about the maid’s rabbit which she kept in a hutch in our garden, fearing that it would soon be a drowned rabbit. I finally splashed home and to my relief the bunny had found a perch just above the floodwaters. It looked so cute and helpless I had to give it a little hug… and a carrot.
A few months later the rabbit was gone. I hoped it didn’t end up in a pie.
Humphrey
A rabbit features in one of my favourite tales from England. A man in Orpington,
Kent nipped out of his flat for some shopping but upon returning was astonished to find his front door had been totally demolished.
Apparently policemen had rushed to the flat after operators from a phone monitoring service said they had received a call from the residence and could hear a woman whimpering. On arrival at the flat the officers could get no response so they broke in, smashing down the front door.
Once inside the flat the officers were greeted by the sight of Humphrey, a large rabbit hopping around the room making whimpering noises. Humphrey apparently had tripped over the cord that alerts the emergency services and the “crying woman” was the distressed rabbit pining for some company.
Rugby bunnies
Do not overlook the successful South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby league side. In the old days, to earn some extra money on Saturday mornings the players took to the streets already wearing their rugby jerseys while selling rabbits, calling out “rabbitohs”. They skinned the rabbits on the spot and inevitably their shirts were heavily stained with rabbit blood and fur.
Their opponents in the afternoon were not impressed by the smelly blood-stained South Sydney shirts and mockingly called them Rabbitohs and the name stuck. The team are naturally nicknamed The Bunnies and their proud mascot is Reggie Rabbit.