THAILAND: 10 Millionth Chinese Tourist Welcomed In Thailand

The Thai minister of tourism and sports Weerasak Kowsurat (left) welcomes He Weixin, the 10 millionth Chinese visitor to Thailand, on December 19, 2018.
On December 19, the Kingdom of Thailand welcomed the person it identified as the year’s 10 millionth Chinese tourist.

He Weixin, from Yunnan province, disembarked from her Thai Airways flight from Kunming to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, to be welcomed by representatives of the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

The minister of tourism and sports, Weerasak Kowsurat, said, The welcoming of the 10 millionth Chinese tourist for 2018, for the first time ever for Thailand, reiterates the Thai tourism industry’s ongoing efforts to strengthen the awareness of Thailand as a top tourism destination.

The 10 million mark is a milestone made even more pertinent amid a slowdown of arrivals from the Middle Kingdom following a tragic boat disaster in July, when 47 Chinese died.

Recognising this, Kowsurat added: Thailand will improve the country’s safety and security standards, and improve facilities and access to the emerging secondary provinces to make the country a preferred destination for Chinese tourists.

He received an array of gifts and a limousine transfer to her hotel. If she was asked whether she’d be taking a boat tour during her stay in Thailand, her answer has not been reported.


Tourism Observer

CHINA: China Southern Airlines Acquires First 787-9, To Start Kunming-Islamabad Flights

China Southern Airlines' first Boeing 787-9 has been delivered to its Guangzhou headquarters, joining a fleet of 10 787-8s.

The aircraft is configured with 28 business and 269 economy class seats, and features on-board connectivity that will be available to all passengers.

The airline says that it will operate the aircraft on long-haul routes.

All of the SkyTeam carrier’s 787s are powered by General Electric GEnx-1B engines.

China Southern has a further 19 787-9s on order, which are coming from a mix of direct orders and via lessors AerCap and Air Lease.

Deliveries of those jets are scheduled out to 2020.

Meanwhile, China Southern Airlines Co. Ltd will be starting flights between Kunming and Islamabad from mid of this year.

This was underlined in a meeting of the Airline’s Executives with Pakistan’s Consul General to Chengdu, Muhammad Mudassir Tipu.

The delegation of the airlines Tuesday met the CG in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, and included Hu Yaohui, Director International Marketing, Ma Yun Deputy Manager and airline’s staff.

China Southern Airlines operates the largest fleet, most developed route network and largest passenger capacity of any airline in China.

The Airline fleet is ranked the first in Asia and the fourth in the world.

It operates more than 2000 daily flights to 224 destinations in 40 countries and regions across the world.

Hu Yaohui in the meeting underscored that, given the depth and breadth of China-Pakistan relations, Pakistan’s strategic location, it’s tourism potential, as well as Pakistan’s economic growth the China Southern had been planning to start three-day-a-week flights from June this year.

The flight will fly on Guangzhou-Kunming-Islamabad route.

The Kunming-Islamabad route’s flight time will be nearly four hour while the return flight will take five hours’.

He added that with commencement of this flight trade, economic, commercial, and tourism ties will expand between China and Pakistan and the broader region.

He hoped that passengers would be able to transit from Islamabad to other Middle Eastern countries via this flight.

The China Southern has approached the Chinese government to authorize start of the flight, the Director maintained.

The Consul General, Muhammad Mudassir Tipu welcomed the start of the flight and emphasized that it was a clear demonstration that Pakistan’s relations with China were vigorously expanding in a host of areas.

The CG hoped that as a consequence of CPEC and OBOR initiatives, as well as Pakistan’s growth trajectory, wider economic and commercial opportunities will be generated necessitating enhanced connectivity between Pakistan and the western China.

The CG underlined that in recent years Pakistan’s tourism industry was significantly flourishing and direct flights will provide impetus to both Pakistan and China’s tourism potential.

The CG offered full co-operation and support to the Airlines for smooth operations of the flight and hoped that Airlines will continue to deepen and expand its relations with Pakistan in future.


Tourism Observer

CHINA: China Eastern Airlines Flight From Paris Hits Turbulence In China, 26 Injured

At least 26 people were injured, four of them seriously, when a China Eastern Airlines flight from Paris hit turbulence on Sunday over southwest China.

The incident happened when Flight MU744 from Charles de Gaulle Airport was descending to land at Kunming Changshui International Airport in Yunnan province.

Passengers are being treated for bone fractures, scalp lacerations and soft tissue injuries caused by falling baggage or collisions with overhead lockers, it cited local hospitals as saying.

We felt strong turbulence twice and minor turbulence three times. The process lasted about 10 minutes, a slightly injured passenger surnamed Zhang as said.

The nationalities of the other injured passengers are unclear.

China Eastern Airlines said on its official microblog account that it has arranged medical services but gave no other details.

"(We) remind all passengers, for your safety, please fasten safety belts," the post added.

The airline has not yet publicly come out with any other statement pertaining the accident.

The plane landed around 9 am (0100 GMT) on Sunday, an hour later than scheduled.

"We applauded when the plane landed safely. We feel lucky the plane did not crash," an injured passenger said.

CHINA: Six Men Arrested For Horrific Assault Of Two Women

Six men have been arrested in a famous tourist town in southwest China in connection with a horrific assault of two women late last year, local police said in an online statement on Wednesday.

The two young victims were visiting the ancient town of Lijiang, Yunnan province when they were attacked and tortured by a dozen local young men at a barbecue shop in November.

One of the victims released photos showing her badly swollen, bloodied face, blackened eyes and a long deep gash the length of her nose, requiring half a dozen stitches, on social media platform Sina Weibo on Tuesday.

The woman said in her post that the drunk men attacked them with beer bottles, before she was dragged out on the street and slashed across the face with a broken bottle as her attacker filmed the torture on their phones in public. She claimed that some if the men said they wanted to scar her face for life.

The men said they had “strong local connections”. No one intervened during the attack, and police were reluctant to investigate the case, the victim said.

The post spread quickly on mainland internet, prompting nationwide appeal for women’s safety.

The Lijiang Public Security Bureau said in its statement on Wednesday that a special task force had been set up after the post appeared, and that all six main suspects had been arrested.

The police confirmed the attack on the women tourists but said the victim suffered only a “slight injury”, according to their medical assessment conducted last week.

The police response prompted a further outcry on social media, with many Weibo users complaining that the gash on the victim’s face looked anything but mild.

CHINA: Another Chinese Tourist Grabs Seagull To Pose For Photos

Tourists in China have again been criticised for grabbing seagulls to take photographs with the wild birds, according to a news website report.

In the latest incident a man grabbed a gull while visiting a dam near Kunming in Yunnan province, Kunming.cn reported.

Photographs of the tourist’s behaviour were taken by an internet user who has been taking pictures of the birds for 30 years. They show a gull struggling to escape as it is manhandled by a visitor.

The photographer was quoted as saying it was the fourth time he had seen tourists grabbing gulls to take pictures.

“Seeing them injure seagulls, I feel pain in my heart, so I have come forward to stop them, ” the internet user said.

“I documented how they injure seagulls to warn tourists in Kunming not to harm birds, but get along with them.”

A tourist was strongly criticised last week after he grabbed a gull by the legs at a park in Kunming to pose for a photograph.

Media in China regularly run stories about the boorish or rude behaviour of some Chinese tourists.

The national tourism authorities have set up a blacklist of tourists considering to have behaved particularly badly.

CHINA: Bad Chinese Tourists Should Be Locked Up 5 years Not 5 days, Internet Users Say

The passenger made unreasonable demands, including asking a flight attendant to remove his pants for him after he spilt a drink on himself, Kunming Airlines said.

Chinese internet users have complained that the five-day detention for a flight passenger who disrupted public order on a domestic flight was not harsh enough, a local news website reported.

According to the airline, the male passenger, surnamed Fan, had made several “unreasonable demands” on flight KY8234 from the eastern city of Hangzhou to Kunming, in southern Yunnan province, last Thursday, Kunming Airlines said in a statement on their website.

The man had asked a flight attendant to remove his pants for him after he spilt a beverage on himself, refused to switch off his mobile phone as the plane was taxiing before take-off, and made staff pour him a glass of every beverage choice available, amongst other demands in the three-hour flight, Kunming Airlines said in statement.

Internet users called for the passenger to be blacklisted, saying that the police should “punish the perpetrator to ensure flight safety”, according to the Shanghai-based news website Thepaper.cn.

The airline added that a flight attendant asked the man to change into another set of pants so she could help him clean the dirtied pair.

She refused to help him take off his pants as he requested, and in response, he tossed a cup of juice at her, splashing other passengers in the process and threw a handful of rubbish at another senior flight attendant’s face.

The passenger was handed over to authorities after the plane landed in Kunming, and was detained for five days.

Many who commented online said the penalty was too lenient to serve its purpose of deterring other passengers from behaving badly, the Paper.cn wrote.

“If the penalty was changed to five months or five years, this kind of thing would not happen anymore, and these kinds of people would disappear,” one user commented.

China’s civil aviation authority recently issued a list of prohibited behaviour for inflight passengers after a spate of air rage incidents.