He added that many overseas tourists had postponed their trips to Thailand mainly to avoid the unsettled political environment.

Local travellers have also rescheduled domestic trips, in particular to the Andaman coast after being spooked by a tsunami warning issued last Sunday.

"At the world's largest tourism exhibition ITB 2006 in Germany, I found that tour operators in European countries were worried about Thailand's political situation and another expected tsunami," said Taksin.

 According to the Association of Thai Travels Agents (ATTA)'s latest statistics, the number of tourist arrivals in March totalled 271,552, a slight increase from 270,946 tourist in February.

Wichai Rattamanee, president of the Trang Tourism Association, said after the tsunami warming, many tourists left Trang's tourist destinations.

Trang is one of the six southern provinces on the Andaman coast that were severely damaged by the tsunami on December 26, 2004.

Wichai said the tourism business in Trang and its surrounding areas had been recovering but they were in trouble again since Thailand's National Disaster Warning Centre on Sunday warned people to look out for possible indicators of a tsunami due to an unusually high number of underwater earthquakes in a short period.

It stopped short of a warning, however, and no official's evacuations took place in the vulnerable areas on the Andaman seacoast.

The World Tourism Organi-sation (WTO) reported that the supply of hotel rooms and load factors along Thailand's Andaman coast, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives were still lower than before the tsunami tragedy. The full recovery could be completed after this year.

The study is part of the Phuket Action Plan for the revival of tourism in tsunami-affected countries, including Indonesia. The plan was created at a special emergency meeting of the United Nations WTO executive council in Phuket in January 2005.

Kitti Pattanachinda, vice president of the Phuket Tourism Association, told the Phuket Gazette last week that the country's political problems had been broadcast around the world and when potential tourists watched the news they might change their minds and travel to other countries they consider more peaceful.

Thailand's political turmoil is affecting Phuket's tourism industry and Scandinavian travel agents have already been inquiring about security factors and risks on the island, he said.

Suchat Sritama

The Nation