Peter Bonnesen, a 71-year old man from Denmark, has gone back to Phuket. Peter left Phuket 3-weeks before the tsunami waves struck. He heard about the tragedy on 26 December in his home in Denmark and booked a flight to Phuket to support the Thai people.
The best thing you can do to support the friendly Thai people is by NOT staying away, but to come on Holiday to Phuket, said Peter Bonnesen, while relaxing on the clean white sands of beautiful Bang Tao beach yesterday morning. Peter Bonnesen and his wife stay several months a year at the Laguna Beach hotel in Phuket, where they checked back in on January 9 in support of the Thai people.
You won't see many holidaymakers on the beaches currently and the resort is nearly empty (so are the other 560 Phuket hotels), but the hotel is working normal as always, the staff is very friendly, the service excellent and the beaches are cleaner than before.
Peter's message is that the tropical paradise of Phuket is not lost, those Thai people depend on tourists being here as most of them work in the tourism industry, which accounts for one-third of Thailand's total revenue. Phuket and the Tourism Authority of Thailand need help to get the message out to the world that its still a paradise here.
Occupancy in most Phuket hotels, this time of year, is typically 95%. With the problems of the tsunami waves this average is now down to 10 a 15% according to Khun Pattanapong Aikwich, president of the Phuket Tourism Association (PTA).
Khun Pattanapong pointed out that more than 96% of the Phuket hotels are functioning as before and that from the hotel rooms out of commission, half are closed due to electrical or mechanical failures caused by the sea-water that infiltrated the hotel's power-room. Only one shopping mall (on the beachfront) is still closed due to its basement floor that had been completely flooded.
None of Phuket's golf courses have been affected and the Thailand Open Golf Tournament will proceed as planned in a few months, Khun Pattanapong added.
The biggest damage has been caused by the Media that simply announced that Phuket was devasted and who further added the word "Phuket" to any area hit by the Tsunami in Thailand.
Many countries have send medicines, water, money, clothes and even water-filtering equipment to Phuket, for which I thank those countries in name of all the Thai people. But Phuket had never any shortage of all of this and the Government of Thailand has been passing all those generous gifts on to countries who are much more in need, Pattanapong said.
.... WHAT PHUKET REALLY NEEDS is that the world knows the truth about Phuket being as before, a tropical holiday paradise, with no shortage of anything, and that many tourists start coming back, else more than hundred thousand Thais working in the hotel industry will loose their jobs, Khun Pattanapong sadly added.
There is some hope on the horizon for Phuket, as waves of tourists from around the region are expected in Phuket in the coming weeks. Some 15,000 three-day and two-night package tours at 50% discount have been offered to Hong-Kong and Singapore holidaymakers, for the Phuket Chinese New-Year festival, in cooperation with Budget Air Carrier "Tiger Airways", the Tourist Authority of Thailand and many Phuket hotels.
