Tourism Industry Struggles, Six Months After Disaster

21 June 2005 - Patong Beach, Phuket
1. One man sitting on the beach looking into the ocean
2. Row of beach chairs, only one man sitting and reading newspaper
3. Row of empty beach chairs, sea in background
4. Jet ski operator with no customers
5. Various of masseuses waiting on the beach for customers
6. Various of Western tourist getting massage
7. SOUNDBITE (Thai) Pimol Pretrit, Beach Masseuse
"It's bad. I've been working here doing this job for six or seven years now. I don't know what else I could do."

26 December 2004 - Patong Beach, Phuket
8. Tsunami wave striking beach, UPSOUND (English) "Get in, get in, get in."

27 December 2004 - Patong Beach, Phuket
9. Various of destruction and debris along Patong sea front

21 June 2005 - Phuket, Thailand
10. Man walking past stores and businesses open, but with few customers
11. Store signs
12. One person on a moped driving down street
13. Exterior of Royal Palm hotel
14. Various of employee setting up lounge chairs next to pool
15. SOUNDBITE (Thai) Krisada Tansakul, Hotel Owner:
"Yes, I'm tired, but we can't give up. We've come so far with the business. You can't just give up or wait for something to happen, just because you're tired. We just have to struggle on."
16. Phuket director for Tourism Authority of Thailand, Suwalai Pinpradub, walks along beach
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Suwalai Pinpradub, Phuket director for Tourism Authority of Thailand:
"Why this takes so long for tourists to come back, since we thought that only two or three months after the incident, that everything would be ok. But now it's half a year and we still have a lot of work to make them more confident to come back."

Taipei, Taiwan - June 2005
18. Passengers walking inside Taipei Airport
19. Passengers at ticket counter
20. Various of agents working inside travel agency
21. Set up of travel agent Lee Hsiu-chin working at computer
22. SOUNDBITE (Mandarin) Lee Hsiu-chin, Travel Agent in Taipei:
"It was not the money problem that stopped my clients from going to Phuket, but the trauma. People feel that when you are in the water, they could imagine the dead floating around. They might also feel that when they check into a hotel, no matter how fancy it is, there used to be hundreds of dead in there. It was the trauma."

15 June 2005 - Tokyo, Japan
23. People walking in concourse of building
24. SOUNDBITE (Japanese) Vox pop, Woman, Japanese Citizen:
"You never know what it is like unless you really go there. You never know how much of reconstruction was done. If there is no road, we just cannot have a vacation. So, I am bit concerned of going there."

22 June 2005 - Khao Lak, Thailand
25. Various of workers building homes
26. Water being turned on
27. Various Swedish volunteer Annika Dabrowski gathering water to help build house
28. SOUNDBITE (Swedish) Annika Dabrowski, Swedish Volunteer Worker:
"Being out here as a volunteer has been an amazing experience. You get so much gratitude, you get smiles from the Thai people. In a very selfish way, it's very fulfilling, because you're doing something, but I believe you're receiving so much more because of the experience you get."

20 June 2005 - Ban Nam Khem, Phangnga Province, Thailand
29. Various of people running during a tsunami evacuation drill

STORYLINE:

Six months after the devastating December tsunami, Thailand's tourism industry remains in crisis.

Restaurants and hotels may be open for business along the south-west coast, but visitor numbers are critically low.

Latest figures from the Pacific Asia Travel Association show that direct international arrivals on Phuket island are down 68 percent from a year ago.









Restaurants, shops and bars are open - but largely empty.






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