After being closed to visitors for over six months due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Phu Kradueng National Park in Loei province will reopen on October 1.
The park was out of bounds to visitors from March 25 when a nationwide lockdown was imposed.
The government has been encouraging Thai people to travel to famous tourist attractions during holidays and has even offered incentives.
Phu Kradueng is one of the most famous national parks, spread over 217,576 rai (34,800 hectares), with an abundance of flora and fauna attractions.
The geographical diversity of the park includes cliffs, waterfall, field and forest, which draw domestic and international visitors throughout the year.
The Nepal Tourism Board is holding a special event on Saturday (September 26) to mark Prince Siddhartha Gautam Buddha’s decision to give up palatial luxury to search for truth 2615 years ago.
The following day, it will hold another event marking World Tourism Day 2020 in a bid to show that the country has come out of the Covid-19 outbreak and is ready to receive visitors.
A tour package, called the Great Renunciation, has been designed to follow Buddha’s footsteps from Lumbini to Bodhgaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar in India.
This Great Renunciation tour will start in Lumbini on every full moon day from January 2021.
Taiwan, Thailand and Japan are now the most-searched travel destinations this year, according to research by Agoda.com.
As the Covid-19 situation improves in many countries and social restrictions are lifted, the travel itch that has been subdued for months is growing stronger around the world.
Taiwan tops the search list among travellers, beating last year’s champion Thailand, which is knocked into second ahead of Japan, Vietnam and South Korea in the top five. The United States, Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia complete the top 10.
Among solo travellers, Japan and Thailand take second and third spots, while family travellers put Thailand top of their list, ahead of Vietnam. For group travellers, Vietnam is the second-most searched destination ahead of Thailand.
Most searched cities
The Taiwanese cities of Hualien, Yilan, and Taipei are the most popular destinations searched for stays in the latter part of 2020. Bangkok and Tokyo, the top two most searched destinations in 2019, fell to seventh and ninth respectively, while Taipei (3) holds the same position as last year.
For couples, this year’s wish-list is lead by Hualian, Taipei and Bangkok, followed by Yilan, and Jeju Island, a shift in gears from last year’s couple searches which lead with Bangkok, Tokyo, Pattaya, Bali, Taipei. Families too are searching to alternative off the beaten path and less crowded destinations this year compared to 2019’s Tokyo, Bangkok, and Okinawa Island hot spots. Instead, this year’s wish-lists are led by Taiwanese destinations Hualien and Taipei, with Bangkok taking third spot.
Group travellers have shifted their searches to countryside destinations of Hualian, Yilan, Nantou, Taitung, and Kenting for travel in the remaining of 2020, a shift from beach destinations like Batangas (Philippines), Pattaya (Thailand), Okinawa Main Island (Japan), that featured as the top three searches in 2019.
Interestingly, for solo travellers, Tokyo, Bangkok, and Taipei firmly hold their spots and emerge as the top searched cities in both 2019 and 2020.
Singapore, Bali, and London which were Solo travellers’ most searched destinations in 2019 are missing from this year’s wish-lists.
After spending some time with travel restrictions in place, travellers are shifting their travel searches away from well-known tourist destinations to lesser-known places and moving towards nature and beaches instead of city breaks.
Nong Nooch Tropical Garden is hoping free entry and six new life-size dinosaur statues will help bring back visitors next month.
This is part of the many measures put in place to revive the tourism sector, which has been hit hard by the Covid-19 outbreak.The six figures, that were built in just 86 days, include a 13-metre tall Tyrannosaurus Rex, the 14-metre tall Saurophaganax, Acrocanthosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus statues, a 15m tall Giganotosaurus and an 18m tall Spinosaurus.Provincial representatives from Khon Kaen, Kalasin, Mukdahan, Sakon Nakhon, Nakhon Phanom, Bueng Kan, Nong Khai, Udon Thani, Nong Bua Lam Phu and Bangkok were invited for the opening ceremony.Nong Nooch Tropical Garden is considered one of the 10 most beautiful gardens in the world and features 811 dinosaur statues and many plant species.
New Sheraton resort in Phuket to offer close-up view of Pernakan art heritage
Sep 22. 2020
By The Nation
Four Points by Sheraton Phuket Patong Beach Resort will welcome guests to a vibrant world of art when it opens its doors on October 1.
The new resort, designed in partnership with Artslonga, who specialises in art that reflects Phuket’s Pernakan heritage, also harnessed the skills of young graduates from Silapakorn University.
Strolling through the resort, guests will be able to admire a collection of almost 70 paintings and sculptures. Ornamental vases can be seen in the corridors, just like in a traditional Phuket home, while images of classical ceramics adorn walls in the restaurants.
Phuket’s Peranakan culture was created by the arrival of Chinese immigrants, predominantly Hokkien, who originally came to work in the island’s tin-mining industry. Their unique traditions are reflected in the local art and architecture – especially in the elegant shophouses of Phuket’s Old Town. Today, it is estimated that approximately 70 per cent of Phuket’s population has Peranakan roots.
Tourism authorities are planning to market Loei province as a world-class destination, as the government works on stimulating the country’s tourism sector.
The Designated Areas for Sustainable Tourism Administration (Dasta) said Loei possesses a diversity of natural resources, culture and ways of life that can be presented as part of a “Leisure in Loei” promotion.
The province’s safety measures, cleanliness and sustainable tourist attractions also meet the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria, Dasta said.
Loei’s Chiang Khan district already welcomes more than a million visitors every year and is expected to be added to the Sustainable Destinations Top 100 list next year.
Meanwhile, in a bid to revive the tourism industry and woo tourists in the fallout of Covid-19, the Tourism and Sports Ministry will next month launch an “Explore Unseen Thailand” promotion, which will focus on lesser known provinces like Loei.
Pha Sam Kleur viewpoint in Nakhon Ratchasima is welcoming back tourists with its stunning views of Thap Lan National Park’s emerald mountains and turquoise Lam Sae reservoir.
Visitors scaled the Khao Makha mountain peak on Monday to bask in the chill between rainy season and winter, when the valleys below are carpeted in lush green.
Pha Sam Kleur means the peak of three mountains – the other two mountains can be seen from its viewpoints. The spot is also renowned as great place to watch the sunset and farmers toiling in the fields below.
To get there, visitors take highway 224 from Nakhon Ratchasima city (Korat) past Ban Mai sub-district administration organisation and turn left onto rural road 3115 to Korn Buri district. After 3 kilometres, turn right and take the unsurfaced road to Khao Makha. The drive from Korat takes about an hour.
Covid-19 makes flying business class feel more like economy
WorldSep 15. 2020A sample of Emirates Airlines business-class travel in 2017 at the Dubai Air Show in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Flying business class isn’t what it used to be, with a pandemic on. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Natalie Naccache
By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Angus Whitley, Anurag Kotoky · BUSINESS, FEATURES, TRAVEL Forget the flute of chilled Moet & Chandon before takeoff, midflight gin and tonics and a roaming dessert trolley after dinner. Flying business class isn’t what it used to be.
Efforts to minimize human interaction and reduce the risk of covid-19 infection are taking the shine off the most expensive seats onboard commercial aircraft. Gone are the multi-course banquets and warm personal service, once the hallmarks of carriers like Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways. These days, what’s left of premium-grade travel is functional, hygienic and closer to cattle class — only with more legroom.
The limitations are one more headache for an industry grappling with a near-total collapse in demand and follow years of luxury one-upmanship among carriers in a contest for the most profitable passengers.
It’s suddenly harder to tell airlines apart when you’re up the pointy end. That’s making it tougher to win top-paying customers, and risks pushing some to the back of the plane.
“There’s nobody to help you with your bag, you’re not escorted to your seat, and there’s definitely no preflight champagne,” said Sandra Lim, who flew business class to Singapore from Los Angeles with Singapore Air late last month. “It feels like it’s reverted back to economy class.”
Crew wore face masks and eye shields, and avoided contact and shared touch points where possible, Lim said. While passengers could ask for a drink, they weren’t freely offered, and there were no menus. Meals came with everything on one tray, just like in economy, rather than in separate courses.
“When you strip away the food and service, it’s just a mode of transport to get from point A to B,” said Lim, 38, a food and beverage consultant.
Some overseas routes have resumed, but traffic worldwide has barely started to creep back. International passenger demand was down 92% in July, and the planes that were flying were typically about half full, according to the International Air Transport Association.
It’s also not clear to what extent the premium market, which IATA says generated 30% of airlines’ international revenue in 2019, can recover. Many grounded business travelers have become accustomed to video conferencing rather than making visits in person, and a global recession threatens corporate budgets.
“We are facing a long and uncertain road to recovery,” Cathay Chief Customer and Commercial Officer Ronald Lam said Monday. “We simply will not survive unless we adapt our airlines for the new travel market.”
IAG SA, owner of British Airways and Iberia, said in July that leisure demand will recover before corporate travel, and this “structural change” in the market will lead to new cabin layouts. On a conference call, IAG Chief Financial Officer Stephen Gunning said British Airways retired its Boeing Co. 747s early partly because they had so many premium seats.
Low-cost airlines such as Ryanair Holdings Plc and easyJet PLC, largely catering to short-haul leisure travelers, are likely to bounce back faster than airlines with a bigger international focus, UBS Group AG analysts led by Jarrod Castle said in an Aug. 21 report.
The appeal of a larger, more comfortable seat that extends fully flat may be enough to keep business class passengers coming back, said Volodymyr Bilotkach, a lecturer in air-transport management at the Singapore Institute of Technology. But it might be different for those in premium economy.
“On the airlines where I have experienced it, this product was more ‘economy’ than ‘premium’ to begin with,” said Bilotkach. “I don’t know if passengers would be willing to pay that price differential now.”
Yet airlines somehow need to keep filling premium seats, or get rid of them. According to Bilotkach, a single business class seat that lies flat needs to generate at least four times the profit of an economy seat to justify all the space it takes up in the plane.
Some airlines will use the pandemic to permanently downgrade their offerings in premium cabins to save money, said Jeremy Clark, who runs Malaysia-based JC Consulting, which advises carriers on catering and service. That means many airline-dependent suppliers will shut, limiting the scope for on-board dining and service to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels when travel recovers, he said.
That said, “there will still be airlines that recognize the value good food and service bring to their brand in return for the relatively small cost of providing it,” said Clark. “We’re human beings. We like to be spoiled.”
While covid-19 has reduced the frequency of service onboard, when safe, airlines will return to a fuller culinary service with premium cabins leading the way, according to David Loft, chief commercial officer of Emirates unit dnata catering.
Until then, business- and first-class passengers should expect scaled-back service and more modest meals, said Michelin-starred chef Vineet Bhatia, who has worked with British Airways and Qatar Airways for almost two decades.
He said travelers needn’t worry about the risk of infection from the food or even a tipple — “having a scotch in a plane with 40% alcohol is safer than having a glass of tap water” — but they want to see some covid-19 precautions.
“The safety aspect has to be very visual,” said Bhatia. “The passenger wants to see crew maintaining distance, greeting him fully covered, giving him his meal in a wrapped up box and leave. That looks like science fiction, but that’s how it is.”
Even that wasn’t quite enough for Graziela Guludjian, who took a 12 1/2 hour flight to Barcelona from Singapore in business class last month. The Singapore Air crew gave her a bag with a facemask, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes.
“I didn’t feel comfortable,” said Guludjian, who was moving back to Spain with her husband and three children. “I didn’t want to fly, but I had no option. I don’t want to travel any time soon.”
The pink rice field that Phitsanulok’s Ta Pho subdistrict is so famous for will be open to tourists from October 1.
Jaturong Chomphusa
Jaturong Chomphusa, 32, who turned his back on office jobs three years ago, said he found the pink riceberry strain while harvesting rice one day.
After conducting four experiments, he sowed the pink rice in a four-square-metre field and named the variety Pink Lady.
“We have been conducting the fifth experiment since July 16 and the rice has started changing its colour. We expect to see grains in the field by mid next month,” he said.
“We will harvest the rice in November and save the best grains for further experiments.”
He added that only natural fertilisers are used in this rice field.
“Though people can come to see the Pink Lady from tomorrow, the coffee shop and souvenir outlet will open from October 1,” he said.
ThailandSep 13. 2020Photos by Tatchadon Panyaphanitkul
By The Nation
Bryde’s whales are being seen again in the Gulf of Thailand, thanks to the abundance of food resources, which has drawn the attention of tourists.
Boats sailed into the sea to take visitors to the spot from where they can get a glimpse of the giant marine mammal, surfacing to eat fish.The whales use their tails to paddle small fish towards their head so that they can easily swallow them.The whale is usually visible from September to the end of the year, since tonnes of anchovies come to the area.Visitors can take the boats at Samut Sakhon and Phetchaburi provinces to see a family of whales or a lonely whale searching for food in the gulf.
This is part of the many measures put in place to revive the tourism sector, which has been hit hard by the Covid-19 outbreak.
The six figures, that were built in just 86 days, include a 13-metre tall Tyrannosaurus Rex, the 14-metre tall Saurophaganax, Acrocanthosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus statues, a 15m tall Giganotosaurus and an 18m tall Spinosaurus.
Provincial representatives from Khon Kaen, Kalasin, Mukdahan, Sakon Nakhon, Nakhon Phanom, Bueng Kan, Nong Khai, Udon Thani, Nong Bua Lam Phu and Bangkok were invited for the opening ceremony.
Nong Nooch Tropical Garden is considered one of the 10 most beautiful gardens in the world and features 811 dinosaur statues and many plant species.
Strolling through the resort, guests will be able to admire a collection of almost 70 paintings and sculptures. Ornamental vases can be seen in the corridors, just like in a traditional Phuket home, while images of classical ceramics adorn walls in the restaurants.
Pha Sam Kleur means the peak of three mountains – the other two mountains can be seen from its viewpoints. The spot is also renowned as great place to watch the sunset and farmers toiling in the fields below.
A sample of Emirates Airlines business-class travel in 2017 at the Dubai Air Show in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Flying business class isn’t what it used to be, with a pandemic on. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Natalie Naccache 
Photos by Tatchadon Panyaphanitkul 
Boats sailed into the sea to take visitors to the spot from where they can get a glimpse of the giant marine mammal, surfacing to eat fish.
The whales use their tails to paddle small fish towards their head so that they can easily swallow them.
The whale is usually visible from September to the end of the year, since tonnes of anchovies come to the area.
Visitors can take the boats at Samut Sakhon and Phetchaburi provinces to see a family of whales or a lonely whale searching for food in the gulf.
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