Thailand rekindles historical ties with Greece
Thailand’s Governor of Tourism was in Greece today to meet his Greek counterpart in a bid to resurrect tourism and promote the previous historic relationship shared between the two nations.
Yuthasak Supasorn met with Olympia Anastasopoulou, General Secretary of Tourism Policy & Development, in the Greek capital to revive a tourism cooperation memorandum signed by both countries 16 years ago.
The two tourism departments talked about a number of problematic issues from resuming direct flights between Athens and Bangkok that were stopped in 2012, to the delays in issuing tourist visas to Thais who wanted to travel to Greece.
Over 14,000 tourists traveled to Thailand in 2019 while about 3,000 tourists from Greece have made it into the kingdom this year.
Anastasopoulou states that more than 10,000 tourists will have made a trip to the Land of Smiles by the end of next year. She added both departments will resolve previous problems, such as direct flights and visa issues, and resume their historical friendship.
Yuthasak reported that Thailand has turned to Europe for tourism in the post-pandemic period as Asia still appears to be a little flakey. China was Thailand’s No.1 tourist market in the pre-Covid-19 period with over 10 million tourists a year. But that has changed since the Chinese government imposed major travel restrictions which have deprived the kingdom of a major slice of tourism income.
Greece and Thailand have enjoyed over 40 years of happy traveling but the Thai minister made it known that trade relations between the two nations go back four centuries. And Thailand and Greece are keen to promote a little-known fact about their relationship from the past.
Costantin Gerachi, known in Thailand as Constance Phaulkon, was a charismatic adventurer of Greek origin who was a prime minister of Siam, between 1683 to 1688, when he died. Gerachis’ house in Lopburi in central Thailand still exists and is a major tourist attraction.
SOURCE: Travel Daily News
