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Thai Airport Standoff Proves World Is Indeed Flat

Suvarnabhumi Airport has finally reopened, though it promises to be a total disaster in the near-term as hundreds of thousands of tourists try to flee Bangkok. The eight-day standoff illuminated how important airports are--and how their closure, for whatever reason, can cut off entire countries from the outside world.

For every inconvenienced tourist, it seems, there was a FedEx package that couldn't get through. The International Herald Tribune reports that ritzy hotels had to shake up their menus without fancy imported food available and orchid growers had to dump inventory on the domestic market, at one-third the price they're used to getting. Japanese restaurants ran out of sushi, and wine reserves were going fast because people "don't have much else to do these days" the food and beverage director of the Four Seasons told the newspaper.

But perhaps the most globalized industry of all, tourism, took the biggest hit, with officials predicting a 30 to 40 percent drop in vacations this holiday season. Worries about the future of the $17 billion-a-year industry--both because of the airport closure and the on-going political crisis--even forced the country's central bank to cut its interest rate by a full point Wednesday. As the head of Thailand's tourism office told a local paper: "Even the tsunami was over in just one day."

Related Stories:
· Bangkok Feeling the Pain of Isolation [IHT]
· Bangkok Airport Resumes Operations [NYT]
· Bangkok Airport Crisis coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: JasonDGreat]