Destinations known | As Thailand woos Russian tourists with longer stays, Phuket locals witness their island turning into ‘something resembling a resort town on the Black Sea’
- Russian tourists are looking increasingly eastward and many are heading to Phuket, where signboards in Cyrillic and new Russian restaurants welcome them
- North Korea is also rolling out the red carpet; Russian tourists became the first foreign group to visit the country since the pandemic
“War, huh, yeah, what is it good for …” asked Edwin Starr in 1970, as fighting raged in Vietnam.
The answer, according to the chart-topping song, is “absolutely nothing” – but that’s not completely true.
War is great for those who don’t have to fight it but do benefit from owning shares in weapons manufacturers. And in the case of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, in particular, it’s good for the tourism industries in countries such as Thailand and North Korea.
Russian airlines are banned from most European airports and tourists from Russia face a host of restrictions across the continent – unless they’re among those wealthy few who have, according to anecdotal evidence, obtained by bribe (€6,000/US$6,490) Ukrainian registration plates and swan around Europe in large SUVs.
Most Russian holidaymakers, therefore, are now looking increasingly eastward instead of west.
