According to The Nation, tourist arrivals at Phuket's airport during the first two months of this year hit a low of 48,000, as opposed to the 248,000 holidaymakers who flew in during the same period last year. The economic loss from the weak inflow of tourists in places such as Phuket, Phang Nga and Krabi has been estimated at 43 billion baht (US$1.07 billion), according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

In an attempt to make the area more tourist friendly, a system that includes beachside loudspeakers is being unveiled by Patong's local government as part of a tsunami early-warning system. Were a tsunami to head toward the coast, the loudspeakers that were installed in mid-February would be activated to warn the public.

Now, aside from the pleasant sound of waves rolling off the Andaman Sea and crashing on the shore, tourists heading to the beaches of Patong on this popular resort island are being exposed to a steady flow of announcements in Thai from nearby loudspeakers.

In addition to the hum of passing cars and the burst of speeding motorcycles, holidaymakers have to take in such broadcasts between 10am and 2:30pm, times the Patong municipality has been assigned to run local news bulletins for the benefit of both locals and foreigners on the sweeping coast.

"We are broadcasting news because we want to give people good information," Chairat Sukkaban, Patong's deputy mayor, told reporters. "This will make the Thai people more relaxed."

To augment the loudspeakers, three separate towers with sirens that can reach up to 120 decibels each and can be heard up to two kilometers away are being installed to cover Patong's bay. The sirens will be part of a more sophisticated network connected to Thailand's National Disaster Warning Center (NDWC), currently being set up in Nonthaburi, on the northern outskirts of Bangkok.

"There will be no person in Phuket to turn the switch [for the sirens] on. It is fully automated," said Pat Neely, an expatriate from the United States helping to coordinate the early-warning system. "These sirens are used elsewhere for disasters like floods and chemical spills and for tornado warnings in the US."

According to Chairat, the network of sirens and loudspeakers has placed Patong ahead of other beaches along Thailand's Andaman coast in terms of tsunami preparedness.

"This [warning network] is the first on Phuket and will be ready by April 15," the deputy mayor told Inter Press Service. "Other places will get it later."

The NDWC intends to set up 50 sirens in the six provinces along Thailand's southwestern coast, Smith Dharmasaroja, the center's chairman, told a seminar early this month. The center's early-warning system plan also includes directions for people in the six provinces to follow if an evacuation is ordered and a new environmental and zoning system to make areas "safer and more tourist friendly", according to a report in The Nation, an English-language daily.

Close to 5,400 people, about half of them tourists, were killed by the tsunami that struck Thailand's six southern provinces along the Andaman coast on December 26. Aside from Phuket, the other provinces affected were Krabi, Phang Nga, Ranong, Satun and Trang.

The pain from the dramatic drop in the number of tourists is severe, particularly for women such as Dam, who earns money giving massages on Patong beach. "After the tsunami there is nobody here, or maybe one or two people wanting massages a week," said Dam.

Before the December tsunami, she had four to five customers a day, a number that had kept marginally rising or falling during the 18 years she plied her skill in the art of Thai massage.

The Manila-based Asian Development Bank had women like Dam in mind when it revealed in a report released in early April that 24,000 more Thais will join the ranks of the country's poor due to the affect of the tsunami on the economy.

Tourists should start thinking about the people who survived, for they need these tourists back in order to rebuild their lives, Wichit Na-Ranong, president of the Tourism Council of Thailand, told reporters.

"There should be no feeling of guilt to have a holiday here now that 100 days have passed since the tsunami," Wichit stressed. The tsunami early-warning system being put in place near beaches like Patong is another reason for tourists to return, he added. "It is more safe now.


By: Asia Times Online, Hong Kong