If there's one thing you always hear tourism officials gloat about, it's how many visitors Thailand gets at any given time. Figures are reported to track the number of international arrivals, hotel occupancy rates, and, most importantly, how much baht is injected into the economy.
This is all wonderful as tourism is one of the key drivers of the Thai economy. So much so that we locals have mostly come to terms with the sometimes silly gimmicks used to lure tourists, being known as a land of perpetually smiling people, and dealing with the large, large buses carrying hordes of visitors that hold up traffic in tiny sois.
Sure, sometimes Thailand receives negative press in our hospitality towards visitors, especially with recent reports of police conducting unwarranted searches of foreigners, along with gruesome tales of crime, murder and scandal. This usually causes outrage for a few weeks before it goes away on its own (as is the natural decay of news), or officials rev up the PR machine to combat bad publicity.
This is why it is very surprising that tourism officials would knowingly put themselves in an unfavourable, and if I may say, hypocritical light.
It was reported earlier this week that "etiquette manuals" were issued for Chinese tourists coming to the Kingdom during their New Year holiday. According to the Bangkok Post, the order came from the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) office in Chiang Mai, who wanted to curb "offensive behaviour" from the expected 90,000 visitors to the northern city.
The Mandarin-language manuals included advice for visiting museums (such as not touching paintings), warnings against using public spaces as bathrooms, and tips on proper driving etiquette.
I agree that it would be lovely if we lived in a world where common courtesy was understood and exhibited by all. But couldn't you substitute that same manual for Thais?
(The answer to that is yes.)
Instead of singling out one group of visitors, it would seem far more effective (and fair) to issue a standardised set of regulations for all tourists and locals when it comes to basic etiquette. For example, how can we expect others to drive properly when they're probably just trying to dodge our own horrendous habits behind the wheel?
And I don't want to solely pick on our local habits, but not every fingerprint at the scene (or even footprint on the toilet seat) can be traced back to Chinese visitors.
The existence of this manual is also essentially biting the hand that feeds our hungry tourism cravings, as Chinese visitors come to Thailand in droves and also spend a lot of money, according to those aforementioned fancy figures tracking tourist data.
In my opinion, issuing guidelines and restrictions on human behaviour is probably the most ineffective and futile thing you could do; I've been trying via this column for four years and still nobody lets me exit the elevator before they swarm in!
But my personal gripes aside, it seems the best approach would be to lead by example instead of issuing a generalised directive on what "proper" behaviour is.
Perhaps we could take a cue from Japan, which offered tourists some simple and agreeable recommendations for improved etiquette. These included: Reminding visitors that queuing is normal in Japan, and there is no line-cutting for anybody; when attempting to get service at a shop, tourists should wait for an assistant to come to them instead of calling out to someone; and, drivers must be considerate to pedestrians, stop at zebra crossings, and have patience without honking.
Oh, do these guidelines sound familiar? Well, that's because these suggestions were actually issued to Thai visitors! Back in Nov 2014, the Royal Thai Embassy in Japan warned that social media contained reports about Thai tourists behaving badly, and advised that we get our act together. How do you like that?!
So while it's clear that basic decency is something that is highly valued, it appears that we need to follow our own etiquette manual before we start dishing it out to others. G
