As travelers start requesting trips to Thailand after the tsunami
wiped away thousands of lives and buildings, agents are bringing
back stories of surprisingly normal scenery and locals ready to get
back to business.
During a weeklong trip to Thailand in March, Judy Garland, of
Judy Garland & Associates, in Hermosa Beach, Calif., said at
first she saw little damage from the tsunami.
“Reconstruction has been very rapid and very focused,” Garland
said. “They want to get this behind them.”
Even in Khoa Lak, an area hit hard by the tsunami, Garland said
that while some hotels were still devastated, “it wasn’t
horrible.”
Larp Waldei, of Thailand Vacation Tours, in Yorba Linda, Calif.,
who visited Thailand twice since the tsunami, said she was
impressed with the extent of the reconstruction, adding that many
roads and shops have recently reopened.
Garland said that Thai guides were reluctant take tourists to
areas that were destroyed by the tsunami. A large chunk of
Thailand’s economy is dependant on tourism, Garland said, and the
country’s recovery is dependent in part on Westerners still
thinking of the country as a vacation spot. While tourists are
returning to the area, Garland said that most of the tourists she
saw were European: American faces seem to be the slowest to return
to the country.
Waldei
“What I found very frustrating,” she said “was people’s perception
because of the news coverage & the media made the general
public, the traveling public, think the whole country was
destroyed,” she said, adding that much of the country wasn’t
affected by the tsunami. “The media has moved on so there’s no
follow-up, and that’s what Thailand needs, a follow-up.”
Garland said that the water conditions were good for swimming,
and the tsunami brought species of fish to Thailand that haven’t
been seen there before.
And this might be the best time for tourists to make the
trek.
“They’re just begging for business,” Garland said, adding that
hotels and Thai Airways have lowered their rates to woo
travelers.
Varini de Silva, of Ceylon Express International, in Huntington
Beach, Calif., said selling Thailand as a vacation destination has
been a slow recovery.
De Silva
“I believe that people are still not very comfortable about travel
to Thailand,” she said. “Although the affected areas are minuscule
in comparison to the rest of the tourist areas, the mindset, that
it is a region of destruction, persists.”
Silva said that a full recovery is contingent on tourists
returning to the region. She added that a natural disaster could
happen anywhere.
“It’s like saying, ‘Don’t visit California because it’s not
earthquake proof.’”
