Drama over Chinese tourists wearing Thai school uniforms has ended with authorities conceding that the visitors mean no harm and are probably doing the country a favour by promoting it.

The saga began when pictures of young Chinese women modelling Thai high-school uniforms appeared online. It took only a day for a lawyer to discover that a law most people had never heard of might have been broken.

In this case, it was the Student Uniform Act, under which non-students can be fined for dressing up as students and then misbehaving in ways that might harm the reputation of a school. That was enough for the Office of the Basic Education Commission to issue a warning to tourists.

But the Ministry of Education said on Thursday that the visitors did not have any intention to make fun of any educational institutions.

The ministry’s regulations related to uniforms were aimed only at preventing wrongdoers from wearing uniforms to falsely blame a school or to cover up a crime, the ministry said.