Two decades after tsunami, Swiss tourists flock to Southeast Asia

Thailand and Indonesia back on the Swiss agenda Keystone-SDA

Twenty years ago, a catastrophic tsunami in Southeast Asia led to a big downturn in Swiss tourists heading to the region. Today, countries like Thailand are again among top destinations, including at Christmas.

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“After 2004, tourism in Thailand initially saw a marked downturn. In the 2005-2006 Christmas season, demand was significantly lower than in previous years,” Muriel Wolf Landau from the Swiss travel agency Hotelplan told the Keystone-ATS news agency.

In the following years, demand for holidays in Thailand rose again. With tourism a mainstay of the Thai economy, the return of international guests was of great importance not only for the regions concerned, but for the country as a whole.

“Today, Thailand is one of the top five destinations for beach and city holidays during the festive season,” Wolf Landau said. When it comes to individual travellers, Thailand is even in first place.

+ Read more: follow a Swiss family from Basel to Bangkok

Indonesia, which was also devastated by the biggest earthquake ever recorded in Asia, is not such a popular destination for Swiss travellers at Christmas. This is mainly due to climate factors; on many Indonesian islands, it’s the rainy season.

Southeast Asia is also currently experiencing strong demand from tour operators belonging to the TUI group. For the current winter season, Thailand has reached record levels, with an increase of 15% on 2023, a spokesman told Keystone-ATS. In Indonesia, demand has remained at the 2023 level.

Tourist regions better off

Overall, tourism recovered rapidly from the worst natural disaster in living memory in Southeast Asia. On the Thai beaches of Phuket, just two years after the earthquake/tsunami, there was virtually no visible reminder of what had happened. Less prosperous regions recovered more slowly.

In the first four months of 2006, a year after the disaster, tourist demand to visit the region rose by 21%, according to the World Tourism Organization. In Thailand, Bangkok airport recorded almost 30% more tourists in this first post-tsunami season. Swiss tour operators Kuoni and Hotelplan were already logging record bookings for Thailand and the Maldives at the time.

Translated from German by DeepL/dos

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