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Across the region, from Japan to Thailand, tourist sites, hotels and have emptied as concern about the epidemic has disrupted travel.
By Patrick Scott
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam – Arashiyama Bamboo Forest, one of the most visited sites in Kyoto, Japan, is quiet enough to hear the bamboo creak in the wind.
The Ngong Ping 360 cable cars in Hong Kong, which fly over Lantau Island and take passengers to a prominent Buddha statue, motionless and empty.
The weight of teams of tourists following the flag that stacks the lantern bridge in the ancient city of Hoi An in central Vietnam has disappeared.
And in Siem Reap, home to the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the busy Sala Lodges had not had a new reservation for 3 weeks.
Coronavirus outbreak wreaks havoc on tourism, World Travel says
transcript
Voices like those of Chinese citizens are very rare. People who are in a position to communicate the government’s attempts to deliver news about the fatal coronavirus. They have asked to remain anonymous because what they do can put them and their families at great risk. But those other people are part of a new wave of Chinese citizens, struggling to spread the word in a country that aggressively censors the news. Accounts or messages like those asking for a single voice are temporarily removed from the Internet. Or videos like this one, showing other people frustrated with life under lock and key. [Clanging] Posted online one day, but disappeared the next day. But the coronavirus crisis is transforming the landscape, at least for now. Everyday citizens maintain and republish data that the government does not need. Experts say that this kind of virtual resistance is waning on a scale they have never noticed before. Social networks like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are blocked in China. But other web-savvy folks use techniques that allow them to republish censored content on those platforms, while staying off the radar of the authorities. They create a visual archive by preserving videos like this that appear in battered hospitals. [yelling] And they’re republishing other people’s non-public stories. Some are also turning to less apparent platforms, adding GitHub, which is a site that is used mostly through coders. Another taboo that Chinese citizens reject? They are making open and widespread calls for freedom of expression. These were caused by the death of Dr. Li Wenliang. He was one of the first whistleblowers to warn of the virus and was punished through officials for speaking out. He died in early February from the coronavirus. Immediately after his death, the hashtag “I need a loose speech” began to spread on Weibo, a Chinese social network. It was then temporarily censored through the government. Dr. Li has become an icon in the online fight for freedom of expression between censors and citizens. So who wins? For now, citizens are one step ahead of the authorities. But a new government offensive may simply test the strength of this virtual resistance.
The Asian countries closest to China, which is the epicenter of the epidemic and the world’s largest source of foreign and tourism spending, are the biggest affected by the crisis, but the effects are spreading. On Sunday, Venice interrupted its annual carnival birthday party and the Italian government arrested 10 cities in the Lombardy region after an increase in the number of new cases.
In recent years, Southeast Asian countries have invested heavily in resorts and casinos to capture the developing ranks of Chinese hikers. Airlines, hotels and tour operators are now suffering from a wave of cancellations and a drop in long-term bookings, basically from mainland China. but also Western travelers frightened by the spread of the virus in the region.
The economic balance is growing: countries that have relied heavily on Chinese tourism, coupled with Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore, are expected to lose at least $3 billion in tourism-related revenue, according to a study by Animesh Kumar. director of tourism and GlobalData, a London-based consulting and studies company.
The heavy losses are mainly due to the absence of Chinese tourists, but also to the fact that some “tourists from other countries are afraid to approach China,” he writes in his report.
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