The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was cataclysmic for Thailand’s economy. Tourism is important to the Andaman Coast and to Thailand as a whole, accounting for 6.4 per cent of Thailand’s GDP and 10.6 per cent of total employment. Today, as most of the tsunami damage has been repaired, we look back over five years of recovery efforts.

This report offers, in a humble spirit, some observations about the tsunami recovery process. There are all sorts of different ways of building more resilient and sustainable tourism destination communities that support local livelihoods and economies whilst limiting physical and social degradation.

But to do so requires a critical rethink of development models, governance and social adaptive capacity. It is also possible to figure out the carrying capacity of these destinations, and to find realistic ways of compensating for the impacts of tourism on ecological systems.


Download the project report (PDF: 2.64MB)