Introduction
Andaman Tourism Recovery Plan 2005 was developed by Tourism Authority of Thailand in order to manage the Crisis of “Tsunami” Tidal Wave, which mainly caused tremendous damages to 6 southern provinces of Thailand, which are Phuket, Phang Nga, Krabi, Ranong, Satun and Trang. This tidal wave not only affected to local people and thousands of tourists, who lost some of their family members and property in this natural disaster, but also many of tourism investors and service providers such as Hotels and accommodations, restaurants and travel agents lost their property and incomes as well. Since these 6 southern provinces of Thailand are located on coastal Andaman, they are very famous among tourists both Thai and foreigners for beautiful coasts and unspoiled nature.
Each year, these provinces could bring a lot of tourists from everywhere to Thailand. The local people in theses areas earn their living mainly from selling souvenirs and providing tourism services to tourists. Therefore, when “Tsunami” tidal wave unexpectedly attacked and made many of tourists canceled or postponed the trip to Thailand, it causes the opportunity to restore the business and improve condition of living of local people after the Tsunami seem to be hopeless. Therefore, Andaman Tourism Recovery Plan 2005 will assist all stakeholders to know where Tourism Authority of Thailand is heading to in order to restore and develop these 6 southern provinces. In this report, we will study and analyze the recovery plan and evaluate the possibility to make all processes success according to the objectives, which Tourism Authority of Thailand set up.
Ms. Ajaree Viwatpinyo I.D. 463 9605 Ms.Naiyana VongfufeungkajornI.D. Objectives -To study the Andaman recovery plan 2005, developed by TAT. -To analyze the positive and negative of impact from the recovery plan. -To analyze the potential effectiveness of the recovery plan.
-To criticize the role of concerned organization in order to create the effectiveness of the plan. According to the tidal wave disaster “Tsunami” which attacked many countries around Andaman Sea on 26th of December 2004, 6 provinces in southern part of Thailand are one of the victims of this natural disaster. In consequence of “Tsunami”, the situation of tourism in Andaman coastal provinces of Thailand is facing the unexpected crisis. Moreover, the unclear information regarding the situation in affected areas leads to the decrease of number of tourist. For example, the disaster caused many tourists to cancel hotel bookings in Satun, even the province received only slight damage.
Many resorts, which had been fully booked by foreigners during the peak season, had received zero bookings since the tidal wave “Tsunami”. The TAT has been given the responsibility to develop the Andaman tourism recovery plan 2005 in order to restore the tourism situation in 6 provinces affected by tidal wave “Tsunami”, which are Phuket, Phang Nga, Krabi, Trang, Satun, Ranong. These provinces used to be very popular tourism destinations until the unexpected attack of the tidal wave. Therefore, the Andaman recovery plan 2005 was developed in order to bring back the prosperity in the old days and even re-position and develop these destinations to be more fascinating in the future.
The Andaman Recovery Plan 2005 is summarized as follow: Firstly, TAT divided the plan into 3 phases. Phase I – 26 of December 2004 until 15 January 2005. Phase II – is shorterm plan which start from January 15 to March 2005 Phase III – from March 2005 onwards. Base on Phase I, the affected areas are divided to 3 categorizes as follows; 1.Areas most affected: which at least one-year recovery effort needs to be taken.
These areas are Phi Phi in Krabi and the coastal towns of Tai Muang, Khao lak and Tap lamu in Phang Nga. 2.Areas moderately affected: which should take between 3-6 months to recovery. These areas are beach resorts in Phuket: Kata, Karon, Kamara, Nai Yang and Patong. 3.Minimal impact or unaffected areas: which only very little recovery or even non-recovery is required.
These areas are Trang, Mukoh Tapu and Ko Panyi island in Phang Nga, Ao Maya bay area, Phuket city centre, cape panwa, Coral reefs off the islands in Krabi and in Trang are Koh Tarutao, Koh Khai, Koh Adang, Koh Rawi, Koh Leepeh and Koh Bulon appeared unaffected. Beaches and coral reefs were undamaged. At this Phase, TAT also assesses the condition of hotel and resort accommodation in order to classify which one are still in good condition and ready to operate after Tsunami tidal wave attack. According to Phase I of the Andaman recovery plan, in our opinion, TAT responded quickly to this unexpected crisis. The evaluation after the crisis assists TAT to assess the remaining tourism capacity of each area. Therefore, the tourism flow of southern part of Thailand was not totally stuck.
TAT also calculated the estimates loss of income (approximately 10 million baht per month), which helps to stimulate the concerned stakeholder to quickly restore the basic infrastructure to be ready to support both domestic and international tourism again. The good evaluation of phase I will lead to the good planning of Phase II. We can analyze the recovery plan of TAT at this phase that the operation of TAT effectively assisted to clarify rumors and negative images, which tourists from all over the world are having to 6 provinces of Thailand. The facts, which TAT has been presenting through the official website of TAT and other media , helps to regain trusts from tourists and investors. At the moment we are writing this report, Phase II has just started, and will end in March. The main objectives of Phase II are to restore tourist facilities and basic infrastructure, which were destroyed and to promote the unaffected part by creating special campaigns and present to worldwide tourists.
It is very good idea to set up campaigns to present what is actually going on in these provinces because some news can create rumors and pictures of heavy affected areas can scare tourists. Therefore, promotional campaigns will help to convince tourists to visit the destinations once again. However, according to Phase II and Phase III, we do not agree that the development will be started in Phase III. The restoration and the development should be done at the same time. Realistically, we have full confidence that the restoration, and promotion in phase II plus the beauty of coastal areas themselves will accelerate to generate a lot of tourists to come back and also bring new tourists to visit this destination.
In order to support the consequence of heavy promotional campaigns, we think that there are some actions in phase III that should be started and developed along with the restoration and promotion of phase II. These actions are, for example, -Zoning -Rule and Regulation -Training These 4 actions should be developed before the increasing of tourist number. As the objective of recovery plan would like to reposition these province to be the new model of Thai coastal tourism. The development after the coming of tourist is will be too late and even difficult to make it effective. As we think that the local people who were suffer by the tsunami cannot wait until phase III, to earn their living. Finally, to make the plan become effective and to achieve the objectives in each phases, the co-operation and communication between stakeholders: local government, private sectors and local people, have to be very well organizing.
The government has to assign clear responsibility to each involved section and closely investigate the assigned job whether it is processed according to the plan.
