Thailand Wants Tourists To Know It's Still There

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Thailand wants foreign tourists to know it's still there

PHUKET: -- When Craig Smith surveys the JW Marriott Phuket Resort & Spa, he sees more than an unchanged tableau of tropical palms and white canvas beach umbrellas. He sees his occupancy rate dropping like a stone: from 100 percent on Christmas Day, to 50 percent one week after to the tsunami, to 38 percent this week.

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"When Colin Powell comes here Tuesday, I hope the television reports will pick up that 75 percent of Phuket's beaches are normal, that 90 percent of the hotel rooms are open," the Marriott general manager said, hoping to rescue some of his peak season.

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The visit here Tuesday of the U.S. secretary of state and Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida, is expected to focus on how the United States can help Thailand's top resort destination get back on its feet. Low-interest loans will be needed for the hotels and shops destroyed by the massive tsunamis of Dec. 26. But hoteliers and business owners hope that the high-profile American visit will give foreign tourists a highly visible endorsement that Phuket is once again safe for vacationers.

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Marketed as Thailand's "Pearl of the South," this once obscure teardrop-shaped island has become a major international destination, drawing direct flights from 13 Asian and European cities. With five daily flights from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur and a British-run international school, Dulwich International School, some expatriate executives have started a commuter lifestyle, leaving their families every Monday morning for a 90-minute shuttle flight and returning Friday afternoon. With daily direct flights from Frankfurt, northern Europeans have become major buyers of vacation and retirement homes here.

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Until the tsunamis hit, Thai tourism was expanding at steady clip, strengthening its role as a pillar of the nation's economy. After 10 million tourists last year, foreign arrivals hit 6.5 million during the first half of this year, a 27 percent jump over the same period last year

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"A real estate agent friend of has gotten about five calls asking if there is fire sale," said Peter Notley, the British sales manager for about 40 condominiums and villas in the Kata beach area. "Every sensible person realizes that this is a one-off thing and that Phuket will recover rather quickly."

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Larry Cunningham, managing director of Phuket One Real Estate, moved into a brand-new beachfront office on Christmas Day, only to see the new offices and computer files wiped out by the tsunamis 24 hours later. But the water damaged only a handful of the 1,000 properties he represents for sale or rent. Limiting damage, most new properties built here conform to a law establishing 450-feet, or about 135-meter, setbacks from the shoreline.

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"It was a one-in-a-million situation," Cunningham said Sunday of the tsunamis. "Phuket will certainly recover fast as it has much better infrastructure than other areas hit."

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In an indication of Thailand's determination to bring back Phuket, Thaksin Shinawatra, the nation's prime minister, visited Sunday, promising aid for rebuilding the island, which is believed to have Thailand's highest per-capita income.

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So far, the state Bank of Thailand approved nearly $1 billion in low-interest loans to tsunami victims and the government has pledged to give another $800 million in grants to affected people and businesses. International hotel chains are expected to tap into foreign credit lines and insurance coverage for interruption of business.

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"Rebuild it and they will come" was the headline of Phuket Gazette editorial that greeted the prime minister on his tour here. Instead of living "in fear of tidal waves, asteroid impacts and other events over which we have no control," the weekly newspaper urged readers to clean up and rebuild, "making Phuket an even better place that it was before the disaster struck."

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The prime minister, sometimes criticized for his authoritarian ways, told reporters here that damaged commercial coastal areas should be rebuilt in a more attractive way, obeying setback regulations. On Patong Beach, an area he visited, local authorities are taking advantage of the destruction to clear damaged squatter buildings from beachfront areas.

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"The most urgent priority is not the big five-star hotels, but the smaller hotels, the ones where tourists feel a connection," Sean Boonpracong, professor of Southeast studies at Chulalongkorn University, said Sunday.

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Despite the investment plans, southern Thailand is bracing for a short, sharp business downturn for the second half of its peak season. Eighty percent of all real-estate sales in Phuket are made between November and February.

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Jurgen Kutzki, a German law professor in Bangkok, had been planning to invest in a barber shop in Patong Beach. After the typhoon, he senses that he can win a reduced rent: "The landlord called Thursday and said, 'Let's meet very soon, maybe I can give you the upstairs apartment for free."'

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About 90 percent of Phuket's hotel rooms are intact, but hotel bookings are suffering from the devastation of two nearby resort areas, Phi Phi islands and Khao Lak, a nature reserve. The biggest tsunamis in at least a century flattened these two resorts, killing thousands of foreign tourists.

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"My parents want me to come home now, but it is very cold, very windy in Norway," Ben Berntsen, 28, an oil tanker seaman, said as he relaxed in shorts and a T-shirt at a sidewalk café about 40 meters from the wrecked buildings of Patong. "I don't think it will happen for another 50 years, so I am not scared."

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Nearby, at the Baan Sukhothai Hotel & Spa, Rujirapa Pornmanee, a manager, walked through the hotel's tropical gardens, complete with goldfish ponds and swimming pool. Everything looked like the color photos in the hotel's glossy brochures. She had sent letters, e-mails and photographs by e-mail, "but the Japanese keep canceling."

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Phuket's largest entertainment complex, Phuket Fantasea, was barely touched. Nevertheless, it expects a 50 percent drop in its normal winter season daily flow of 3,000 to 6,000 visitors, about 40 percent of them foreigners, The Nation newspaper reported Friday.

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While some tourists have stayed, some have simply moved to different part of Thailand. Seats are hard to find on Bangkok Air's new direct flights from here, across the Gulf of Thailand, to the untouched beach resort of Pattaya. To minimize economic damage, Thai and foreign officials stress that most tourist destinations in Thailand are unaffected.

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"The great majority of Thailand is exactly as it was before the disaster," Edward Wehrli, consul general at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, said Saturday. "Every year, 500,000 Americans visit Thailand. The United States government has by no means suggested that people should not come to Thailand."

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On the macroeconomic level, the huge outpouring of American concern and aid for Thailand could translate into support in Washington for a free- trade agreement between the two countries. Last summer, a free-trade pact with Australia sailed through the U.S. Congress, helped in large part by congressional gratitude for Australian military support in Iraq.

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"A free-trade agreement with Thailand makes sense for the U.S. and Thailand on its own merits," Alexander Arvizu, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Thailand, said while touring Phuket on Saturday. "I hope these tragic events will highlight that we are serious partners."

--iht.com