PHUKET – The immigration chief at Phuket International Airport has been hastily transferred to Bangkok while an investigation is held into a tourism welcome that went wrong.
In a bizarre incident, members of a welcoming Thai dancing troupe and local media were threatened with arrest as they waited to greet the inaugural V Australia flight from Brisbane.
Local news source Phuketwan reported that as the inaugural flight arrived on Sunday, immigration chief Colonel Pongtorn Patchimsawat confronted the welcoming media, officials, dancers and drummers and demanded to know what they were doing.
At one stage, he threatened to have them all arrested
Puzzled passengers walked past the greeting scene, wondering what had gone wrong with the planned traditional welcome and the usual smiling greetings.
Among the welcoming party was the new Tourism Authority of Thailand director on Phuket, Bangornrat Shinaprayoon.
Yesterday, Colonel Pongtorn was no longer based at the airport after his transfer papers back to Bangkok arrived by express delivery.
Phuketwan said the colonel may have been within his rights to question the gathering on the grounds of security, (the welcoming party traditionally greets arriving passengers before they have passed through immigration), but his actions “showed a lack of tact on an island where tourism is the reason why he is thereâ€.
“The greetings always take place on the incoming side of the Immigration counters so the passengers from the ”first flight” can be properly welcomed, rather than all incoming passengers on the other side of the counter,†a news source explained.
At a special meeting with the governor of Phuket, Wichai Praisa-ngob, officials and media representatives expressed indignation at the incident.
Dr Sawit Pongwat, of Rajabhat University, told the governor that his students, who performed the dances and played the drums, had been welcoming special visitors to Phuket for 20 years.
”This is the first time we’ve had this kind of problem,” he said.
