There are two images this week that will remain seared in our collective memory for some time to come – Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport brought to a standstill by mobsters (I refuse to dignify them with the term ‘protestors’) and the top floor of the iconic Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai, on fire.

Two of Asia’s major tourism symbols under attack by small groups of people with narrow self-interests who would hold hostage nations of good people who just want to get on with life.

The damage these two images will have on tourism to these two countries and traveller confidence at large is beyond utterance.

When I look at the photo of the mobsters sitting at Bangkok airport, most of them smiling because they obviously thought they had done something clever, I wonder what on earth must they have been thinking?

To target travellers and to throw into complete disarray travel plans of people from all over the world who have come to your country to experience the “Land of Smiles” is, to me, going against the very essence of what I thought they were fighting for – justice and fair play.

It is neither just nor fair to punish the innocent, especially visitors to whom you should show nothing but hospitality. It is what your entire country’s tourism image is built on.

It is to me a corruption of the Thai ideals of hospitality, similar to the corruption they say they want to weed out of the system by throwing out the current government.

In this one act, the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) has squandered whatever sympathy any foreigner may have had for their cause.

This incident will also erase any lingering patience travelers have with Thailand, you know, that shrug and smile that says, “This is Thailand.”

This is not the Thailand travelers know and love. Minor quirks and eccentricities are one thing; mob violence is another.

The Thai tourism industry can no longer trot the line, “It’s like a carnival here”, or “It’s business as usual”. It cannot be business as usual when a mob of people can descend on an airport to close it down, airlines are forced to cancel flights, travelers are stranded and left scrambling and an entire tourism industry brought to its knees.

In Mumbai, the terrorists were more violent and the attacks deadly and terrifying – luxury hotels being turned into battlegrounds and shootouts is not something we ever thought we’d see in our industry or in our regon.

It renders us helpless against the terror that lives in our midst and our hearts go out to those who lost their lives and the injured. Our sympathies go to the general manager of the Taj Mahal, Karambir Kang, whose wife and two children were killed, and our admiration for the hotel staff who continued to look after guests throughout the ordeal.

Both groups who perpetrated the two incidents obviously believe the ends justify the means. And this week, the means was damaging the international and tourism image of two of Asia’s major business and leisure destinations.

It will be a dark winter indeed for Thailand and India.