Phuket slumped in low season with tsunami hangover

[Nicke]

slumped in low season with tsunami hangover
By Bill Tarrant (REUTERS)

PHUKET, Thailand (Reuters) - Saku Kaponen has a hangover. Sure, that's the name of his bar in Phuket, the Thai tourist mecca, and he's drinking his share of the inventory these days. But what's ailing him is a tsunami hangover.

Kaponen, 27, of Olu, Finland, is drinking at The Hangover in Phuket's club strip with his Finnish friend and dive master, Mika Collin. They're the only customers at the bar Saku bought four months before the Dec. 26 tsunami washed his dreams away.

"This place will never be the same. People say forget about it. But nobody will ever forget," he says, staring into his Jack Daniel's and Coke.

"Lots of pubs are up for rent, people are selling their shops. It's a buyer's market. I'm looking to get out after my year's lease is up."

Collin is doing a bit better. Divers are still coming to the magnificent reefs at Ko Similan National Park, whose nine islands off Phuket are rated as one of the world's top 10 diving spots.

"Divers aren't scared," he snorts, waving one heavily tattooed arm dismissively. "I don't know what happened to the ecosystem after the tsunami but the visibility is even better."

Otherwise, the flow of tourists to one of Asia's premier tourism destinations has dried up, a potential blow to Thailand's economy which is already battling the effects of bird flu and Muslim violence in the south.

Foreigners spent 72 billion baht ($1.8 billion) in Phuket last year and tourism overall accounts for 6 percent of Thailand's gross domestic product.

FIXED UP

So maybe it's not surprising that four months after the monster waves surged over the beach and into Saku's bar nearly 1.2 miles away -- rising up to his ceiling-mounted TV and overturning the pool table -- Phuket has quickly fixed itself up.

The island accounted for only 239 of the 5,400 people killed in the tsunami, which destroyed about 40 percent of the hotel rooms in six southern provinces, the tourism authority says It suffered far less damage than the new resorts at Khao Lak, about 90 miles north, where more than 3,000 died and almost no hotels have reopened.
Yet rows of empty blue-cushioned lounge chairs line Patong beach, normally Phuket's busiest. Masseuses call forlornly from their straw mats under the coconut trees. Jet skis no longer whine annoyingly on the water.

Even Bangla Road's flirty hostesses have deserted Phuket for greener pastures. "If I could only get my girls back, I might be okay," Saku moaned.

International arrivals at Phuket airport were down 77 percent in January-March compared with the first three months of 2004. Tourists from East Asian countries, who accounted for more than half of last year's arrivals, have dwindled to a trickle.

"Japanese and Koreans are not coming," said Oraual Paethong, manager of the Phuket Tourism Recovery Center on Bangla Road. "Asians don't want to go where a lot of people died because they're afraid of ghosts."

Seismologists say the fault line that caused the 9.0 magnitude earthquake on Dec. 26, the strongest since the 1960 Chilean quake, is still quivering with energy. The possibility of another quake-triggered tsunami keeps nerves on edge.

TSUNAMI WARNING SYSTEM

A new 50-foot tsunami warning tower stands a lonely sentinel on Patong beach, a beacon of hope for merchants who pray for the tourists to return.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra presided over the Indian Ocean region's first test of a tsunami evacuation plan at Patong on April 29. The warning tower sirens blared and broadcast warnings in six languages to flee the beaches.

Eventually, 20 of these towers will be built along the coastline of Phuket, Thailand's wealthiest province.

The government, which has let the private sector take the lead in the tsunami recovery effort, is putting its energies into the warning system.

It is planning to install underwater buoys that can detect tremors on the sea bottom and transmit that information to a satellite stationed above Vietnam. A National Disaster Warning Center would issue alerts to radio and television stations and by text messages to mobile phone subscribers.

"We're not unfortunate people, we're business people," said Oraual at the Tourism Recovery Center. "The priority is the warning system. The Europeans want to know what the plan is."

The tsunami is never far from people's minds and has spawned some black humor as well. There's the new Tsunami Tattoo shop on Bangla Road, and the latest hot-selling T-shirt reads: "2001 Bomb Alert, 2002 SARS, 2003 Bird Flu, 2004 Tsunami. What's Next?"

[JayBee]

Interesting article. Is it really that bad? 77% lower tourist arrivals sounds disastrous!

BTW if this guy's bar is really 1.2 miles from the beach, it's no wonder he has no business. That would be farther than Nanai as the crow flies, I reckon.

[Nicke]

"rising up to his ceiling-mounted TV and overturning the pool table"

If it was 1.2 miles away noway the water would rise to his TV and orverturning the pool table. I had some finnish guys in MTB and they told me they had a bar in Soi Gonzo, so i guess it is that one.

Originally Posted by JayBee

Interesting article. Is it really that bad? 77% lower tourist arrivals sounds disastrous!

BTW if this guy's bar is really 1.2 miles from the beach, it's no wonder he has no business. That would be farther than Nanai as the crow flies, I reckon.