'Phuket Action Plan' focuses on Jobs, Small Businesses and Return of Tourists

An emergency plan to assist the tourism industries of countries ravaged by the December 26 tsunami was adopted at a special session of the World Tourism Organization Executive Council in Phuket.

Tourism experts representing 42 countries, the private sector and several international organizations drew up the "Phuket Action Plan" which spells out a comprehensive series of activities intended to restart the region's economically-vital tourism industry, stalled since the tsunami struck.

"We are focusing on the human element in tourism, saving tourism jobs, relaunching small tourism-related businesses, and recovering the visitor flow that makes these economies work," said the WTO Secretary-General Francesco Frangialli.

The main goal of the Phuket Action Plan is to speed up recovery of the tourism sector in the affected destinations, by restoring traveller confidence in the region. The plan also aims to help destinations resume normal operations by maximizing the use of existing tourism infrastructure and by helping small tourism-related businesses and employees survive the recovery period.

Other goals include, putting systems in place that strengthen the sustainability of the affected destinations and working with the United Nations system on disaster reduction in the region.

The Prime Minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra, who attended the meeting, applauded the plan, saying, "The livelihood of thousands of people living in the affected areas depends on tourism and their livelihood cannot return to normal if they cannot earn their living from tourism. Our task is to return trust and confidence to the international community of tourism", he added.

The recovery plan is divided into five operational areas: marketing-communications, community relief, professional training, sustainable redevelopment and risk management. Some of the activities included in the plan are regional in nature, while specific actions are indicated for Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Maldives and Indonesia.

Participants in the meeting appealed to the entire donor community to contribute to the implementation of the Phuket Action Plan through financial donations, contribution of materials, or the loan of expert staff.

Generous offers of assistance were pledged by 14 countries attending the meeting (Andorra, Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Spain and Turkey).

International organizations, such as the Asia Development Bank, the International Finance Corporation and the United Nations Development Programme also promised support.

From the private sector, recovery assistance in the area of marketing/communications was pledged by RCI and Visa International, which co-sponsored the meetings along with the Government of the Republic of Korea,

"The greatest contribution that Visa can make towards recovery is to communicate to our 21,000 member banks and one billion customers that tourism in the region is open for business again," said James Murray, Visa's Asia Pacific Executive Vice-President.

An Emergency Task Force meeting to draft the plan was held on Monday and chaired by the Indian Minister of Tourism Renuka Chowdury.

During that meeting, the Secretary-General called for special attention to travel advisories, urging countries to use them responsibly in accordance with the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism and lift them as soon as the situation allows.

According to Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) CEO Peter de Jong, the Action Plan is especially necessary for small and medium-sized operators of tourism businesses, who have less access to recovery funds than large corporations. "These are the people who put our destinations on the map and they need our help now".

The tsunami disrupted the employment of thousands of people, many of them women and young people. Retraining programmes are needed to help them find new jobs or to help update their skills while waiting for their former jobs to become available again. Likewise, new employees for the tourism industry need to be trained to replace those who perished. Building leadership capacity and counselling for those in the tourism sector are also needed.

To make coastal tourism destinations safer and more secure, the WTO is to work with other United Nations' agencies on establishing an Early Warning System for tsunami's in the Indian Ocean. Risk management analysis will be conducted with special attention to beachfront construction.

As the biggest natural disaster the world has ever seen, the tsunami has had a considerable impact on tourism in the region. With unimaginable scenes of devastation, an overall death toll surpassing 280.000 and more than 3,500 international tourists dead or missing, it is still exerting a strong psychological fear of visiting the region. 

However, tourists are once again being welcomed in the affected countries. Phuket reports about 75% of its resorts are operating normally with no signs of the tsunami on several beaches. In the Maldives, about 80% of resorts are operating normally. Cultural tourism to the interior of Sri Lanka continues although some beach areas remain closed, while Indonesia's main tourism destinations are thousands of km from the devastated Aceh province in northern Sumatra.

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