TAT clowns turn cave drama into circus
Having served the Kingdom’s travel and hospitality industries for a decade and a half, I am used to the Tourism Authority of Thailand going about their business at a less than Amazing pace.
So I could only gasp at the speed with which they moved to exploit the plight of the “Tham Luang 13” and their desperate families. Or “promote the cave”, as the TAT’s director in Chiang Rai put it on July 4.
That’s not to mention the opportunism with which some credited the Royal Thai Navy for locating the boys and their coach, who were in fact discovered by a British diver.
Can this perilous situation really be considered a tourist attraction? Is this yet a “feel-good story”, or cause for some sort of celebration? Or shouldn’t we wait until all 13 have been safely rescued, an outcome that is by no means guaranteed?
Perhaps I am being naïve. Perhaps the real surprise is that charges are not yet being levied for admission to the rescue site. No doubt it would be a two-tier system, with the hoped-for gawping tourists paying double the price of locals.
Meanwhile, at the time of writing, real human lives remain in peril. That is the only real “story”.
Linus
