I Hate Thailand, by Thai government

It's been a bad year for tourism in Thailand, and at first glance it looked like a new YouTube video was adding to the misery.

The video called I Hate Thailand drew more than 1 million views within days of being posted.

But it turned out the clip was produced by Thailand's tourism authority, using a strategy of reverse psychology to attract tourists after the country's image was battered by a military coup in May and the brutal murders of two British tourists in September.

The five-minute video shows an angry British tourist on a beach. He introduces himself as James and says his bag was stolen: "I hate this place. I hate Thailand," he tells a handheld camera. After mouthing off to a policeman, he meets an attractive Thai woman and finds reasons to like Thailand. In the end, the unshaven, bare-chested foreigner cleans up, puts on clothes, befriends the locals and gets his bag back - wallet, passport and all.

Several Thai newspapers reported the video as a real news item last week, prompting the Tourism Authority of Thailand to say on Monday that it was behind what it called the "romantic-comedy short film".