This is incredible!
Mexico is pretty similar as to being a country with major tourist revenue. Still, you don't hear the government coming up with these kinds of restrictions you've mentioned.
What does this mean for Thailand? Is everyone directly and indirectly employed by the tourist industry expected to find other ways of sustenance? While I believe that the mass tourism does have to be curbed, merely focusing on the rich, and turning tourism into a luxury, will not make it any more sustainable. It just scales it all down to where only a select few will benefit from it.
Do you know much about Bhutan? I have heard that they tried to restrict tourism, but I don't know about the results they've had with it. And yes, I do remember that traveling there is an expensive undertaking, more than anything.
We're not sure what it means yet. A friend of mine politely calls mass tourism neo-colonialism and he's not wrong. It IS a rape & pillage for the selfies mindset. And that needs to stop.
Doing a swap to Bhutan style tourism overnight while local businesses have neither the skills nor the capital to make rapid transition is unreasonable and brutal. But as I say that, last month the government demoilished 113 resorts about 1 hour's drive from here that had encorached on indigenous forest land. They mean business.
I'm not sure people fully grasp yet what is happening locally. All I can say is lawyers and acocuntants are making a fortune and there is a lot of stress, wasted time and wasted resources.
Breathing & taking it one day at a time.
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Oh, that sounds so familiar: It has happened here too, that a resort complex was demolished supposedly for encroaching on a natural reserve. In truth they probably fell out of favor with the greedy politicians who enabled them to build there in the first place. At the same time, another construction was started on the other edge of the reserve... All before Covid, just your usual management of things in Mexico.
But that large-scale 180 turn in Thailand does sound scary... Are there going to be national elections anytime soon?
Let's just very delicately tiptoe around your question and say that a change of government is widely tipped soon, but there are no elections planned or scheduled anytime soon. There is much political unrest. More I can't say.
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Oh no! I'm so sorry to hear... Wishing you peace and stability... which once again means, loving neighbors who are there for each other.
ENGAGEtokens.ENGAGEtokens.