As tourism associations rushed to prepare accommodation in Bangkok yesterday for foreign visitors fleeing the disaster-hit South, tourism organizations were forecasting that…
As tourism associations rushed to prepare accommodation in Bangkok yesterday for foreign visitors fleeing the disaster-hit South, tourism organizations were forecasting that it could take two years for the southern region`s tourism sector to recover from Sunday`s devastating tidal wave attack.
Speaking at a hastily-convened meeting of the Thai Tourism Industry Association yesterday, the association`s vice president, Mr. Prakit Chin-amornphong said that the association had prepared over 1,000 hotel beds in Bangkok and the suburbs to accommodate tourists left stranded by the southern disaster.
Some hotels are offering free rooms, and others are offering special prices, he said.
The association needs rooms from 27-30 December to help the tourists travelling from the provinces afflicted by the tidal waves, he said.
A large number of hotels in the southern region were destroyed when massive tidal waves crashed into the southern coasts on Sunday, with hotels on Koh Phi Phi, Phuket and Khao Lak particularly hard hit.
While promising some form of help for the affected hotels, Mr. Prakit said that tourists came first.
Right now we have to think first about solving the short-term problem of helping the tourists affected by this incident, he said.
Miss Maslin Sukphattananarakul, president of the Domestic Tourism Business Association, told reporters that nearly all accommodation bookings in the afflicted provinces had already been cancelled.
Predicting that it would take two years of repair work for the tourism sector in the region to revive, she called for tour companies to put the needs of their customers first, despite the inevitable impact on their business operations.
