WALKING STREET CLEARED

Walking Street is famous for its nightlife and frequented by tourists from around the world so the impact of this false report sent shudders through Pattaya business owners and caused thousands of hotel room cancellations unnecessarily.

False reports that the flu outbreak occurred on Walking Street may have led one small, local tabloid to bare the headline calling Pattaya a “Ghost Town” on its front cover in a recently released issue.

Pattaya Tourism and Business Association President Jamroon Wisawachaiphant said, “The sensationalism surrounding the flu outbreak may cost Thailand billions of bath in lost tourism revenue.”The reports on the web of the virus was contracted in a Walking Street nightlife establishment sent fear among mongers, bloggers and Thailand-oriented website forum contributors who made comments like, “Now I will avoid Pattaya at all cost. How I’m gonna miss it!”

However, the bloggers and also the local business people will be relieved to learn the disco was in the Naklua section of Pattaya more than three kilometers (one and a half miles) away from Walking Street.

The people who got sick were at a local disco in Naklua whose main customers are Thais and infrequently Chinese and Taiwanese tourists, said former Pattaya Business and Tourism Association President and Managing Director of the Sunshine Hotel Group, Thanet Suparahatrangsi.

On June 13, Chonburi Governor Senee Chittakasem (seen in accompanying photo) and Pattaya officials led a massive clean-up of Walking Street and instructed owners and managers of bars, beer bars, go-gos, discos and restaurants on Walking Street to sterilize the premises just to assure the international tourist market of the dedication held by officials in stopping any spread of the virus.

Several area private schools like Maryvit School closed for three days from June 16-19 to disinfect the school as a preventative measure.