The Travel Industry Council of Macao Monday announced that over 40 local travel agencies, which are members of the Council, have decided to suspend their package tour service in Bangkok until April 20, due to the ongoing political unrest there.

Aside from the member travel agencies, the Council also discussed the issue with a non-member agency which has also moved to cancel tourist trips to Bangkok, and a total of seven such package tour trips were cancelled in the next nine days, said Andy Wu, president of the Council.

Wu also said that the Council will meet again next week and decide whether to cancel other package tours scheduled to depart for Bangkok after April 20.

Saturday's clash in Bangkok between Thailand's troops and "red- shirts" anti-government protesters, who are supporters of ousted former Prime Minister Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has led to 21 deaths and 858 injuries. Despite the bloodshed, the protesters continued staging demonstrations against current government.

The government of Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) has already issued its travel warnings, in which local residents were told not to travel to Thailand as the demonstration staged by anti- government protesters turned violent in Thailand's capital.

A package tour group of 25 tourists returned to Macao safely from Thailand by air last night, and the tourists said that their tour there was not affected by the protest.

Thailand has long been the first choice of Macao tourists, as approximately thirty to forty percent of Macao's outbound tourists go to the country every year, according to Wu.

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