Thailand has vowed to tighten oversight of tourists’ behaviour after a series of incidents involving foreigners caught having sex in public, warning they damaged the country’s image.<\/p>\n
Tourism is vital to the southeast Asian nation’s economy but visitor numbers are yet to return to their pre-Covid highs.<\/p>\n
The prime minister’s office said that tourists displaying “inappropriate behaviour”, including illicit drug use, will face prosecution as it “contradicts the beautiful culture of Thailand”.<\/p>\n
The pledge comes after a couple was found performing a sexual act in a tuk-tuk in a popular tourist area of the southern island of Phuket on Monday.<\/p>\n
Authorities said they were working to revoke the visas of a 41-year-old Spanish man and a 43-year-old Peruvian woman, deport and blacklist them.<\/p>\n
The pair admitted to the act and were charged under public indecency laws, the government statement said.<\/p>\n
Public nudity and sexual acts in public are punishable by a fine up to 5,000 baht (\u20ac130).<\/p>\n
The clampdown was “intended to safeguard Thailand’s beautiful cultural values”, according to the prime minister’s office.<\/p>\n
Checks by authorities of entertainment venues would also be stricter, it added.<\/p>\n
Despite its reputation as a sex tourism destination, Thailand is a mostly socially conservative society where public displays of affection are frowned upon.<\/p>\n
But the country decriminalised cannabis in 2022 and is popular among backpackers and young tourists for its rowdy beach raves.<\/p>\n
Last month, a French couple was arrested and deported after footage of them having sex on a Phuket beach spread widely online, according to local media.<\/p>\n
Another couple from France was blacklisted and had their visas revoked after a video of them having sex in a tuk-tuk in Phuket earlier this year triggered outrage online.<\/p>\n
Thailand expects about 33.5 million foreign tourists this year, up from nearly 33 million in 2025 , the government has said.<\/p>\n
Total arrivals dropped by 7% in April, compared to the same month last year, with visitors from Europe declining by nearly 16% last month, according to tourism ministry figures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thailand has vowed to tighten oversight of tourists’ behaviour after a series of incidents involving foreigners caught having…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-471471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news","22":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116528398312957187","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}