Since the outbreak of Violence in Bangkok which is now over governments are now starting to lower their warnings on travel to Thailand The UK office lowered their warning on June 3rd in respect that the violence in Bangkok has now ceased.

On a personal note I would like to state that although it is wise to seek advice when travelling to a foreign country it must be made clear that in many case these so called warnings seem very much to be political sided.  There is no doubt that the violence seen in Bangkok during April and May 2010 were some of the worst seen in Thailand in recent years however,  to the general public international Media and travel warnings made it seem that there was a distinct danger to foreigners throughout the entire Kingdom which was totally not true so I decided to trawl the Foreign office websites for other countries that also have seen violence in recent years...

In reference to the Glasgow airport bombings http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/6257194.stm the US department of state found it necessary not to mention this in their travel warnings.  Excuse me,  but at no point has Thailands airports ever been attacked by a bomb of any kind though if a bomb purposely aimed at an international airport is not a direct danger to tourists then what the heck is?  The same goes for the UK foreign office who conveniently skirt around any terrorist dangers in the US except a laid back sort of,  "there are a few terrorist dangers but don't worry about it too much as they can deal with it" attitude. May I dare recall 9-11?

Recent Jamaican violence:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/latin_america/10173302.stm  The UK Foreign office has a short paragraph on it with warnings about traveling to the area where the violence was taking place????  In a tiny country of just over 11,000 square kilometers they tell you to keep away from certain parts of the capital and I must say that in the times that I have travelled to Jamaica I did feel danger even when there were no drug wars happening!.  Thailand: They advised travelers against all but non essential travel to a country 513,000 square kilometers they advise to not travel to all of it despite the outbreak was in a contained 3 square kilometer section of one of the biggest capitals in the world!!!!

If the foreign offices tell their citizens not to travel to an entire country of Thailand what must people think???  The last time I can recall when I assume a travel warning was given about not travelling to an entire country the size of Thailand was France during the German invasion and that was world war 2 for the love of god!  The Thailand violence was like a kids playground squabble compared to that!

Countries like Thailand depend on tourism yet travel alerts to the extreme as we have recently seen from major western countries including the UK, Denmark, Holland, USA  and Australia cause too much scaremongering and in most cases not called for.  If warnings are going to be issued then please make them unbiased and reported fairly and accurately.

Current situation from the people who live here all the time there is: There never was any danger to tourists outside of that 3 kilometer section of Bangkok and even then tourists were NOT a target as this was purely political unrest.  During the period of the worst unrest leading up to the end on May 19th I was touring with 3 Australian guys and they all remarked on how unfair the Australian government and media reported the 'Thailand Unrest' as "they had not heard or seen any problems at all and the tour was not altered or affected by the situation in the least" even when they departed for Chiang Mai through Bangkok they did not see any problems.

All international travel incurrs a certain amount of danger and considering the amount of tourists that travel to Thailand every year Thailand is a safe place to travel!

A few quick stats for you..

Jamaica

International Tourist numbers per year -  Around 3 million - British tourists requiring Consulate aid = 224

Thailand

International tourists numbers per year - Around 15 million - British tourists requiring consulate aid = 843  (Pretty good safety record considering the visitors!!!)