Litter is piling up in the bathrooms at Bangkok's sleek new international airport. There aren't enough toilets and there's too much picnicking going on. The root of the problem? Too many sightseers.
On top of the 80,000-90,000 travelers passing through Suvarnabhumi Airport each day, more than 100,000 Thais are visiting and snapping souvenir pictures at the new airport, which opened Thursday, said Chotisak Asapaviriya, president of Airports of Thailand.
"So many people are coming for sightseeing, and we're pleading with them to stop. There are too many," Chotisak said. "There aren't enough bathrooms. People are complaining that there's litter all over the bathrooms. They're eating here and there, parking their cars in a mess."
He said the sightseers were coming in droves, in pickup trucks, bringing packed lunches to eat at Suvarnabhumi as they take pictures inside the modern, airy building.
As a result, Suvarnabhumi - built to hold 45 million passengers per year - has been inundated with people who have no travel plans at all.
"I don't want to chase them out because this is public property, and we're all excited about it, but it has made it difficult to work," Chotisak said in a telephone interview.
Airports of Thailand had welcomed visitors to Suvarnabhumi prior to its opening so that travelers could figure out where it was and not get lost en route to the facility once it opened. But Chotisak said the visiting period was now over.
"Please don't come visit and take pictures," he said. "We built this (airport) to accommodate travelers."
"We invited (visitors) so that they could familiarize themselves with the new airport, but now it's no longer familiarization - it has become a picnic."
Copyright: The Associated Press WorldStream -- 10/3/06>>
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