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The clashes led to the declaration of a state of emergency. However, most visitors are happy about their trips and would return.

Abac Poll director Noppadon Kannika said yesterday a survey conducted between Tuesday and Friday, which quizzed 532 foreign tourists and business people in Thailand for the first time, found most knew about the street riots and emergency declaration.

Almost 60 per cent viewed the incidents as normal in a democratic system.

Some 49 per cent said they were affected by the protests, including travel-plan disruptions due to airport closures and railway strikes.

However, they were generally satisfied with Thailand, including the culture, food, tourist attractions as well as safety of life and property.

They were less satisfied about politics, economy and social justice.

The visitors' overall happiness scores before and after the clashes were almost the same - 8.02 and 8.06 out of 10 respectively, Noppadon said.

A group of 97 per cent said it will visit again despite the recent incidents and 99 per cent said it would encourage others to visit the kingdom, he said.

Noppadon said these visitors had probably seen activists in other countries and believed the political turmoil here would end peacefully because the riots had stopped.