Investigate an Issue or Event Since 1995 That Has Affected Tourism Demand in a Country or Region You Have Studied’
Assessment 1, book 1, ‘Investigate an issue or event since 1995 that has affected tourism demand in a country or region you have studied’
For my 1st assessment I am going to be looking how the Tsunami on December 26th 2004 affected tourism in Thailand. I will recount the details of the tsunami, followed by personal opinion on how the scale of the disaster could have been avoided. I will then quote facts and evidence using newspaper/ hotel reports and then summarise my findings.
The Indian Ocean Tsunami on December 26th 2004 was caused by an underwater earthquake and was one of the worst natural disasters to ever hit Thailand, causing major damage and disruption to the environment, property and to the economy. Partly because the worst affected industries were fishing and tourism, many thousands of families lost their livelihoods. The epicentre of the earthquake was in Sumatra, Indonesia and affected many of the surrounding countries such as :- Thailand, Somalia, Burma, Maldives, Malaysia, Tanzania, Seychelles, Bangladesh, South Africa, Yemen, Madagascar, and Sri-Lanka. Many of these countries also had many European tourists at the time of the disaster. With a magnitude of between 9.1 and 9.3 it was one of the deadliest disasters ever recorded and had the longest duration of faulting ever observed of between 8 minutes 3 seconds and 10 minutes, It caused the whole planet to vibrate as much as 1cm and triggered other earthquakes as far away as Alaska. Thousands of people lost their lives. Due to the scale of the disaster tourism died down to a near zero so to encourage people back to the area tour operators were offering many cut rate packages. In some area of Thailand such as Phuket over 15% of hotels closed down as many tourists had lost confidence in the area and feared another tsunami. Bodies were laid everywhere, over beaches, in the sea etc and because of
For my 1st assessment I am going to be looking how the Tsunami on December 26th 2004 affected tourism in Thailand. I will recount the details of the tsunami, followed by personal opinion on how the scale of the disaster could have been avoided. I will then quote facts and evidence using newspaper/ hotel reports and then summarise my findings.
The Indian Ocean Tsunami on December 26th 2004 was caused by an underwater earthquake and was one of the worst natural disasters to ever hit Thailand, causing major damage and disruption to the environment, property and to the economy. Partly because the worst affected industries were fishing and tourism, many thousands of families lost their livelihoods. The epicentre of the earthquake was in Sumatra, Indonesia and affected many of the surrounding countries such as :- Thailand, Somalia, Burma, Maldives, Malaysia, Tanzania, Seychelles, Bangladesh, South Africa, Yemen, Madagascar, and Sri-Lanka. Many of these countries also had many European tourists at the time of the disaster. With a magnitude of between 9.1 and 9.3 it was one of the deadliest disasters ever recorded and had the longest duration of faulting ever observed of between 8 minutes 3 seconds and 10 minutes, It caused the whole planet to vibrate as much as 1cm and triggered other earthquakes as far away as Alaska. Thousands of people lost their lives. Due to the scale of the disaster tourism died down to a near zero so to encourage people back to the area tour operators were offering many cut rate packages. In some area of Thailand such as Phuket over 15% of hotels closed down as many tourists had lost confidence in the area and feared another tsunami. Bodies were laid everywhere, over beaches, in the sea etc and because of
References: Thai hotels association, Thailand tourism, Thai press, The nation.