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Vol.3
No.2
Dive Log
Ghosts and Gremlins
August 2005
Its been a rough season for many dive operators throughout Asia. The
tsunami of December 26 devastated many communities and claimed many
thousands of lives. But its ripple effect has been to cause significant
economic hardship way beyond the geographical parameters of its physical
impact.
Tourism in particular has taken an obvious hit. On Phuket, the undisputed
premier tourist destination in Thailand, and home to the majority
of the country’s liveaboard fleet, a straw poll of dive operators
revealed that diver numbers were down 80% on the previous year. What
particularly irked many operators was the fact that many beaches on
the island suffered very little or no damage in the tsunami itself,
or were cleaned up and open for business very quickly. In Patong,
for example, the most widely reported disaster area in the days after
the waves hit (perhaps because visiting journos were able to stay
in fully functional 5-star hotels and point their cameras towards
the beach and sea while earnestly reporting on the carnage below from
the comfort of their air-conditioned suites), the damaged infrastructure
was cleaned up within weeks, and businesses rebuilt and fully operational
within a few months. The vibrant local dive sites were largely unaffected,
and there are those that claim a few have actually improved since
the waves passed over.
But the visiting divers stayed away in droves.
Why? Adverse and misleading media coverage has been blamed by many.
As we reported in our last issue, changing perceptions is a major
challenge facing the travel industry of affected regions. But there
are other issues that need to be considered, according to one travel
expert quoted in the Bangkok Post some months ago.
“It may take Asian visitors a while to return in any significant
numbers to areas where tsunami victims remain unaccounted for, as
superstition has it that the souls of the unidentified and missing
will be restlessly haunting the area,” he said, adding that
he expected European visitor numbers to rebound “within six
months” because “Europeans are not so superstitious.”
Certainly, in areas that were unaffected by the waves, business has
been more stable over the last few months. Bali dive centres are reporting
growing numbers of divers this year over the same period last year,
approaching pre-Bali bombing figures, and Philippine dive operators
report the market has been fairly stable in 2005. But neither destination
seems to have benefited from tourists deserting tsunami-affected destinations,
although both report cancellations from a few geography-challenged
divers who thought they risked entering a danger zone by considering
a trip anywhere in Asia.
But the reality is that time is not on the side of many tourism-dependent
communities in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, the Maldives and the
Andaman Islands who are struggling to survive the fall-out from the
devastating tsunami. They need the visitors to return, and soon, or
they risk losing their livelihoods.
On a related note, we have heard many comments from dive industry
professionals across the region lamenting the lack of a truly effective
dive industry show for the region. Perhaps it was the venue, a last-minute
move necessitated through a breakdown of talks with the former site;
maybe it was the shadow of the tsunami, or the fact that the show
space was dominated by a training agency and had (we estimate) 13
publications represented, but the overall consensus was that ADEX
2005 in Bangkok was something of a disappointment. In these challenging
times, when marketing budgets are increasingly hard to come by and
require ever more justification, there is a feeling that perhaps ADEX
needs to re-evaluate its direction and deliver significantly more
to the constituency it claims to represent, namely, the Asian diving
industry. The 2006 show in Singapore is therefore critical in this
respect, and we hope the organisers will be listening to the industry
closely over the next few months to ensure that the show performs
effectively.
H
Masthead
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