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TSUNAMI-IMPACT: Maldives Needs Tourists, Desperately

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Feb 2 2005 (IPS) - Tourism is getting a new coat of respectability as an industry that offers a lifeline to help countries devastated by the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami.

The Maldives has emerged as the most desperate to see tourists return to its islands.. This Indian Ocean archipelago, made up of a string of islands and coral atolls, depends on tourism for its survival more than any of the other 12 tsunami-affected countries in South and South-east Asia.

”Maldives needs tourists because tourism in the GDP (gross domestic product) is much more important than in the other countries,” Francesco Frangialli, secretary-general of the Madrid-based World Tourism Organisation (WTO), told IPS.

That is reflected in the figures released at the end of an emergency meeting held by the WTO, a specialised agency of the United Nations, in Thailand on Jan. 31 to Feb. 1.

”Tourism accounts for 30 percent of the Maldives GDP,” states an action plan endorsed during the WTO meeting to help rebuild the tourism sectors of the tsunami-affected countries.

According to the Bangkok-based Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), the number could be higher, since it estimates that tourism accounts for nearly 42 percent of the GDP in the Maldives. In addition, indirect income from tourism to the Indian Ocean islands could be as high as 74 percent of the country’s GDP, adds PATA.

In contrast, tourism’s contribution to GDP accounts for 5.4 percent in Thailand, 4.6 percent in Sri Lanka, 3.9 percent in Indonesia and 2.0 percent in India, a PATA study reveals.

The urgency to attract tourists back to the Maldives arises from the steep drop in the number of foreigners during the current holiday season, where hotel occupancy often peaks. Occupancy rates at the Maldivian resorts that were spared by the killer waves have ”dropped to between 20 and 30 percent at a time of the year when they are usually operating at 100 percent capacity,” states the WTO.

The WTO meeting, which drew participants from 40 countries, was held in this South-east Asian nation’s resort island of Phuket, which suffered badly from the Dec. 26 tsunami. An estimated 5,392 people died due to the surging waters in Phuket, a few neighbouring islands and the Thai coastline along the Andaman Sea.

Indonesia suffered the worst, with over 220,000 dying in the northern province of Aceh, while Sri Lanka’s death toll was as grim, with nearly 38,000. In southern India, nearly 10,000 people died and Malaysia witnessed 68 deaths.

In the Maldives, the tsunami killed 82 people and left over 12,000 people homeless.

Those numbers, however, do not reveal the dire picture that has unfolded in the country of 290,000 people. For one, the tsunami has affected nearly a third of the population, the Asian Development Bank (AsDB) revealed in a recent study..

The damages range from homes being wiped out, the supply of drinking water being disrupted and the few fruit trees scattered across the islands wilting and dying after being struck by the rising seawaters.

”The people have also been hit in areas such as (the) fishing (industry), which is an important source of income,” Moez Doraid, U.N. humanitarian coordinator in the Maldives, said in an interview. ”Nearly 10 percent of the houses in the country were destroyed. That has an impact on living and livelihood, because kitchens are vital in the domestic fish industry.”

The tsunami destroyed 19 of the country’s 87 resorts, each of which occupies an island. A further 14 resorts were badly damaged when the waters rose and engulfed nearly 40 percent of the country’s land area.

According to Doraid, the guilt tourists may feel indulging in leisure at a time when a country is suffering from the tsunami needs to be seen in a different light. ”The world can help by countries contributing as donors and individuals contributing by visiting as tourists.”

Visitors to the archipelago report that most of the resorts untouched by the tsunami are not within close proximity to the islands that suffered death and damage, and they still retain their charm as isolated island paradises lapped by aquamarine waters.

For Ibrahim Hussein Zaki, the former tourism minister in the Maldives, the current drive to attract overseas holidaymakers will have a broader and more lasting impact than pledges to rebuild the archipelago made by the international community.

”Tourism is more sustainable and the benefits will be shared by many, while aid may only be a one-off deal,” Zaki told IPS.

In the aftermath of the tsunami, the United Nations appealed for 977 million U.S. dollars to help rebuild the countries devastated rampaging waves.

Zaki’s comment on the limits of aid comes at a time when the Maldives has still to receive its full share of the amount the United Nations had estimated it would need – 65 million dollars. So far, only 30 million U.S. dollars have been pledged to rebuild the country, of which 20 million dollars have been earmarked to fund programmes of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

”The attention and assistance from the international community is not proportionate with the country’s needs,” said Doraid, the U.N. official. ”There has been support for the relief efforts, but as we get into the rebuilding phase we need more assistance.”