Just weeks after two British tourists were found murdered on a Thai beach, the country’s tourism minister wants to tag all future visitors with identification bracelets.
According to Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul, the information on said bracelet would make it much easier for locals to assist lost, drunk, or otherwise out of it tourists. “The next step would be some sort of electronic tracking device but this has not yet been discussed in detail,” she said, as well as a potential program that would pair tourists with a local “minder.” You know, just like when you visit North Korea.
Other than being a little Big Brother–y, these new measures seem to have a lot of potential for abuse. Would a stranger automatically know what hotel tourists are staying in? And wouldn’t the bracelets themselves make tourists stand out even more?
At this point, though, Thailand’s tourist industry will try just about anything in hopes of recovering. It took a heavy hit because of the country’s political turmoil earlier this year, and the killers of the two Brits have not yet been found.
