Tsunami recovery:

More than 14 months after the Indian Ocean seaquake and tsunami that devastated parts of South and Southeast Asia, countries affected are optimistic that a strong winter season 2005/06 will finally put an end to the crisis that has dragged down arrivals and tourism revenues.

However, an assessment of the post-tsunami recovery by the World Tourism Organiza¬tion (UNWTO), suggests that hotel room and air seat capacity to Thailand’s Andaman coast, Sri Lanka and the Maldives is still lower than before the tragedy. And it concludes that full recovery will not be possible until capacity is fully restored sometime later this year.

The study is part of the Phuket Action Plan for the revival of tourism to the tsunami-affected countries, including Indonesia. The plan was created at the special emergency meeting of the UNWTO Executive Council in Phuket in January 2005. It laid the groundwork for an unprecedented series of nearly 40 tourism recovery projects that included activities such as market research, communications initiatives, safety reviews, planning assistance and the organisation of the TOURCOM Regional Conference in Bali last May.

Recovery of tourist arrivals to affected resort areas has been sluggish, as will be seen by reports on individual destinations over the next four days of the ITB Daily . The most recent official statistics show arrivals to Phuket still down by 50% in August, while October arrivals to the Maldives were down by 23% and foreign guest nights on Sri Lanka’s south coast down by 53% through August. But resorts in all three countries are reporting forward bookings for the remainder of the winter months of between 80-90%. Diminished capacity is still evident in some areas of Thailand’s Andaman Coast like on Phi Phi Island or Khao Lak.

Indonesia presents a different recovery curve. As tourism facilities were not damaged in the tsunami that destroyed Aceh, arrivals in Bali increased from March through Septem¬ber. Terrorist attacks on 1 October drove tourism down once again by an estimated 37% that month. But officials are hopeful that the recovery will be quicker than following the 2002 bombings, due to stepped-up security and improved communications.

13 March 2006