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Amari Watergate Hotel full of Scorpions for a few days
“Always
somewhere...” - The management of Amari Watergate Hotel, led by GM
Pierre-Andre Pelletier, recently welcomed the popular rock band
“Scorpions” on their arrival to Thailand. Whilst here for their
“Scorpions Live in Bangkok” concert, the Scorpions stayed at the Amari
Watergate Hotel. Photo shows from left: Simon Rindlisbacher, asst. front
office manager, James Kottak, GM Pierre Andre Pelletier, Matthias Jabs,
Klaus Meine, Rudolf Schenker, Nichaya Chaivisuth, Amari Watergate director
of public relations, and Pawel Maciwoda.
Low-cost price war turns to Phuket
Thai AirAsia, the sister company of Malaysia’s AirAsia,
will start a once-daily Phuket-Singapore service on November 5, with
promotional fares starting at S$0.29 (US$0.17) one way from Singapore and
900 baht (US$22) from Phuket.
The airline will offer 3,000 seats at S$0.29 excluding
airport tax, insurance and booking fee. All bookings must be made via the
airline’s website.
A spokesman for Thai AirAsia’s chief executive officer,
Tassapon Bijleveld, said the promotional fare was in response to the
“giveaway” fares being offered by rival Tiger Airways which launches its
Singapore-Bangkok service last week and will start a Singapore-Phuket
service on September 22. Tiger’s introductory fare for both destinations
was S$1. SilkAir also dropped its prices last week with an S$88 Singapore–Phuket
return fare. (TTG Asia)
Traffic snarls hit Phuket
Traffic congestion is a problem normally associated with
Bangkok, but according to police in Phuket, traffic jams are becoming
increasingly common on the southern resort island of Phuket.
Pol. Maj. Theerapol Thipcharoen, deputy superintendent of
Phuket district police station, said that over the past 10 years the island
had seen traffic problems grow from bad to worse, with congestion
particularly bad around schools and suburban shopping malls. Speaking of a
traffic crisis in Phuket town if the problems were not addressed
immediately, he called for volunteer traffic control officers to help the
work of regular traffic police officers, whose current numbers were
insufficient.
Theerapol also noted that the town’s authorities were
currently studying the feasibility of widening roads in the town center. At
the same time, he called for better public transport on the island, noting
that most of the island’s residents currently used private vehicles as a
result of poor public transport services. (TNA)
ASEANTA on the lookout
for winners
ASEANTA is inviting interested participants to submit
their entries for the ASEANTA Awards for Excellence 2005. Started in 1987,
the annual awards aim to recognize individuals or organizations for their
positive contributions to the growth and development of ASEAN tourism.
There are nine award categories: ASEAN Travel Article,
ASEAN Poster, ASEAN Tourism Photo, ASEAN Tour Package, ASEAN Marketing and
Promotional Campaign, ASEAN New Tourist Attraction, ASEAN Airline Program,
ASEAN Cultural Preservation Effort and ASEAN Conservation Effort.
Winners will be notified in late December and will be
invited to receive their awards at the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2005 in January
in Langkawi, Malaysia. For more information and entry forms, visit
www.aseanta.org. (TTG Asia)
‘Clean Food, Good Taste’ restaurant pilot scheme to expand
Thailand’s ‘Clean Food, Good Taste’ restaurant
campaign is to be extended to cover at least six more provinces by the end
of the year. The government’s scheme to improve the quality of food at
restaurants and make sure it is both delicious and hygienic has been piloted
at the internationally renowned tourist resort island of Samui in the
country’s southern Surat Thani Province. The government expects to declare
Thailand a country that offers completely hygienic food on 1 April 2005.
Public Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan presided over a
ceremony that marked the end of the pilot project on Samui Island and
certified that 983 out of 989 restaurants on the island offered hygienic
food. Sudarat said Samui Island was the first of seven provinces which are
part of Thailand’s initial ‘Clean Food, Good Taste’ program.
The six other provinces slated for the project are Chiang
Mai, Ubon Ratchathani, Singburi, Ranong, Phuket and Nonthaburi Province on
the outskirts of Bangkok. The campaign is intended to boost important
tourist destinations.
More than 40,000 restaurants out of over 120,000
nationwide have received certificates, and the rest are expected to meet the
required standards before 31 March 2005. “Tourists recognise the symbol on
the certified restaurants, and have confidence in the quality of the food
sold and the cleanliness of these restaurants,” Sudarat said. (TNA)
Etihad to start India flights
Etihad Airways, the national airline of the UAE, is
launching daily Mumbai-Abu Dhabi flights from September 26. Airbus 330
aircraft will be used and a promotion of two tickets for the price of one
will be held for a month.
The airline plans to add more flights to more cities in
India.
Etihad’s South-east Asia area manager, Charles Phelps
Penry, said, “We will be starting daily flights from New Delhi to Abu
Dhabi in early December and also plan to start flights from Kochi, Chennai,
Hyderabad and Bangalore upon bilateral agreement clearance from the Indian
Civil Aviation Ministry.”
Etihad will be starting operations to Karachi from
October and Johannesburg in December and plans to add a new destination to
its network every month from 2005. (TTG Asia)
TAT hails success of Japanese road show
The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) applauded the
success of a recent trade delegation to Japan, which the authority’s
deputy governor said would help pull in new groups of Japanese visitors.
Phornsiri Manohan said that the recent trip to the
Japanese cities of Nagoya, Sendai and Fukuoka by 35 Thai hotels, tour
agencies, golf clubs and conference halls had won a warm welcome in Japan.
Not only had the companies managed to promote regional tourist attractions,
they had also introduced Japanese visitors to niche services such as
conference and incentive tourism (MICE), honeymoon tours and eco-tourism
home stays, she said.
During the road shows, companies presented the Japanese
with information on the development of Thailand’s tourism infrastructure,
including the construction of Bangkok’s new Suvarnabhumi Airport and the
capital’s new underground railway.
Phornsiri said that the trade fair attracted an enormous
amount of interest from Japanese buyers, including renowned Japanese tour
agencies, airlines, airport executives and representatives of Japanese
tourism associations. Expressing hope that the road show would help to
expand the Japanese market, she said that it would help pave the way for
Thailand to become the region’s most popular destination for Japanese
tourists. (TNA)
Stricter controls imposed
at Thai-Lao border checkpoint
The Thai authorities have tightened controls on tourists
and traffic crossing along the Thai-Lao border. Immigration officers have
imposed the stricter controls at the Tha Lee Border Checkpoint in
northeastern province of Loei in preparation for an anticipated increase in
the number of tourists and transport crossing the border once the Tha Lee-Sai
Buri Road is completed.
The elevated road project linking upper Laos and Luang
Phra Bang directly with Leoi Province and bypassing the Lao capital of
Vientiane is expected to be finished soon. (TNA)
Doi Inthanon Nation Park - A Hikers Paradise
B. Phillip Webb Jr.
Forest trekkers can venture into the undergrowth to see
the hardest of old hardwoods in the Doi Inthanon National Park, a two hour
drive from Chiang Mai.
Local people have been exploring the park and forests for
centuries, walking to find Afzelia Xylocaepa on the natural trails. These
trees are a popular hardwood, a rosewood traditionally used to make sturdy
structures.
 This
small rest area is good for cooling off.
“There are thousands of hardwood tress nestled within
the flora and fauna of this wild and beautiful National Park. The hardest
wood is Afzelia Xylocaepa,” said, a forestry officer at the park.
There are many kinds of vegetation along the natural
trail, such as Macrotermes Maund, strangling fig vines that turn the host
trees into a living coffin, lagerstroemia, climbers, epiphytes, leaves,
fallen trees, Tetrameles Nudiflora and lowland semi-evergreen forest along
wildlife sounds.
 Youngsters
take a break alongside a trail in the park.
The natural trail is a vast loop over thousands of rai in
the Doi Inthanon National Park.
Afzelia Xylocaepa is a common tree in this part of Doi
Inthanon. Although it is not as tall as some trees, its spread upper
branches make it one of the more impressive tree species on the trail. This
individual tree has a circumference of five meters and is over 30 meters
tall.
The
author (2nd left) and friends inside the park.
The trail follows the terrain for the entire distance but
can be wet in places following rainfall. Deep in the park there are millions
of climbers, epiphytes and stumps distributed along the trail.
“The best times to walk the Afzelia Xylocaepa nature
trail are early morning and late afternoon because of the cool temperature
and an array of many small animals,” said the forestry officer.
The officer went on to say, “One year, two foreigners
came here for three days. They came at 5 a.m. with their food, water and
went inside the park until evening, at which time they returned.
“The visitors came here daily and spent a long time in
the park because they walked slowly and calmly to see the wildlife and take
photos. The first time they came here, I guided them so they could learn the
trail but when I made a noise they always said: ‘sh sh! sh sh!’ with
their right pointed finger over their lips.”
At a leisurely pace the walk may take one-and-a-half
hours. Visitors may wish to take along snacks and drinks, and in the wet
season mosquito repellant would be useful to have.
The forest of Doi Inthanon has suffered a high degree of
human disturbance over the years. Although no commercial logging has taken
place along the route of this trail, many large trees have been selectively
removed. What remains is a somewhat degraded version of the original
semi-evergreen forest, according to a Chiang Mai municipality tourism
booklet.
The park’s forest is now beginning to regenerate itself through a
series of visibly successive stages. The trail passes through many of these
stages.
Thailand’s national parks to provide insurance for tourists
The National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation
Department will offer travel insurance to tourists to help cope with the
2,000-odd visitors to national parks each year who meet with accidents.
The department’s director for national park
development, Winij Rakchat, said that under the insurance scheme tourists
would be required to pay an extra 10 percent on the price of national park
admission tickets, which would give them insurance coverage of up to 100,000
each.
Around 2,000 visitors to national parks each year meet
with accidents, whether drowning, falling down mountainsides, or getting
knocked on the head by tree branches. At present Thai citizens pay 20 baht
for national park entrance, while foreigners are required to pay the
equivalent of 5 US dollars.
Winij said, “The new admission fees are still extremely
cheap when compared to those levied by other countries.” He expressed
confidence that the scheme, which will be instituted in November, will be
welcomed by tourists. (TNA)
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