Thailand - Scams and accidents scare away tourists

Thailand's attractiveness to foreign tourists is under threat from fraud and poor safety standards.



After a recent bus accident in Chon Buri that injured 26 Russian tourists, the Russian Union of Travel Industry (RUTI) recently urged Thai authorities to improve safety standards, or face a possible boycott by its members.

The RUTI also reportedly demanded the Thai government solve these issues by the end of November, otherwise it will consider taking action to maintain the safety of Russian citizens. This action could include cancellation of all scheduled charter flights from Russia throughout the period of December 2013 to March 2014.

Officials from the TAT and the ministries of Tourism and Transport will hold a meeting on November 26 to discuss the Russian complaints, according to Transport Minister Somsak Pureesrisak.

Rag - that gives the authorities just 5 days to find a solution.......

Read the full article at The Nation.

Britain's Female Sex Tourists

They are called ‘bumsters’ in Gambia, ‘Rastitutes’ or ‘beach boys’ in the Caribbean and ‘sanky pankies’ in the Dominican Republic.

These are the men who, in increasing numbers, are providing sex in return for money or goods to women who want a holiday ‘romance’. The men are invariably from impoverished families, have little or no education and are sometimes illiterate.

Most of the women are white, middle-aged or older and come from Europe and North America. They travel alone or with female friends and often have a history of unhappy relationships with men at home. They are looking for attention and excitement but end up, often without realising it, being one half of a prostitution deal.

At night, in bars playing loud reggae, young men would pull older white women to their feet and show them how to do ‘dirty dancing’, by way of ‘introducing them to my body’, as one man told me. It was an unusual sight — women, some in their 70s, bumping and grinding with men young enough to be their grandsons and drinking Red Stripe beer out of cans.

Each year, as many as 600,000 women from Western countries are said to engage in sex tourism

Read the full article at Mail Online.

Rag - couldn't sex tourists save a lot of money if male sex tourists hooked up with female sex tourists.....