Nordic Countries Lift Travel Advisory

[george]

Denmark lifts advisory against travel to Phuket

STOCKHOLM: -- The Danish Foreign Ministry has lifted the advisory against travel to the Thai island of Phuket, and travel companies responded by announcing plans to resume trips to the island in February, Ritzau news bureau reported on Wednesday.

Travel company Star Tour will send its first flight to Phuket on Feb. 1 since the tsunami catastrophe. Competitor MyTravel follows a week later with its first flight on February 8.

Most of the hotels in the area are operating normally. Star Tour is resuming travel to Kata Beach, Karon Beach and Krabi while MyTravel offers those as well as Patong Beach and Surin Beach.

Cleanup work on Phuket has been in full force since New Year, and 40 of the 43 hotels which MyTravel uses are open and ready for guests. Only Khao Lak and Phi Phi island will not be ready for guests during the rest of the season.

"We're glad we can resume travel to Phuket, and we expect to resume at 45 percent of the originally planned capacity. Everyone agrees that the best way to help the people there in the long run is to resume travel to the island so they can get their economy going again," said Jan Vendelbo, MyTravel's marketing director.

Star Tour expects to resume two-thirds of its operations in the area.

Also on Wednesday, three more names were taken off the tsunami list of missing Danes after they reported to police that they were okay.

There are still 52 names on the tsunami list of missing Danes, and the number of identified death is still seven.

--Agnecies 2005-01-12

[george]

Norway, Sweden lifts travel advisory

OSLO: -- Norway's foreign ministry on Friday lifted an advisory against travel to Thailand and Sri Lanka, but warned of widespread damage from the devastating tsunami that swept southern Asia.

Like many countries, Norway advised its citizens to avoid travelling to the hardest hit areas immediately after the December 26 tidal waves.

"The travel advisory for Thailand and Sri Lanka is lifted immediately," the ministry said in a brief statement.

However, it said that the travellers should be aware that "infrastructure in parts of the crisis is still destroyed or damaged."

According to Norway's national crime police, Kripos, 12 Norwegians died in the disaster and another 78 are missing.

The Norwegian travel industry has said that interest in travel to Thailand -- a popular winter destination for Scandinavians -- remains high, with many charter trips fully booked for areas that were not hit by the tsunami.

--Agencies 2005-01-13

[Mike & Pook]

Finally Danish authorities lift the advisory against travelling to Phuket. I can inform that an e mail storm was send to the Foreign Department in Copenhagen to make them aware of that Phuket can be visited. We need to go there and not just stay away.