A regular freelance writer for travel trade publications such as Selling Long Haul, Short Breaks & Holidays, and On Board Hospitality, I have also written for various consumer and inflight magazines, plus the Home and Public Appointments sections of The Sunday Times and occasional supplements.
Writing now mainly for the travel trade, I don't often get the opportunity to write descriptively about the places I visit. The trade is fixated on facts, trends, occupancy rates, top ten things to do, and new hotels, resorts and flights. They want to know how to sell a destination they may not have visited to their customers. Is it good for children and families? Is it lively enough for teenagers? Could you recommend it for a honeymoon?
But every now and then I get a chance to say exactly what I think about a place. I visited Thailand soon after the tsunami on Boxing Day 2004. I was immensely impressed at how the Thais had reconstructed their resorts in just a few months, and this is what I wrote for ABTA magazine:
In the autumn of 2004, the Tourism Authority of Thailand must have been congratulating itself on having weathered the storm of 9/11. Plans were afoot to consolidate this upward trend with the 2005 campaign, and its confident slogan: ‘Thailand: Happiness on Earth’.
The tragedy of the Boxing Day tsunami appeared to wreck all that good work, with major loss of life at Khao Lak on the mainland and Phi Phi island, and lesser devastation on Phuket and at Krabi. Three months after the tsunami, hotel owners on Phuket were reporting high-season occupancy rates of 15%. And though a heroic clean-up operation had restored Patong and Kamala, heaviest hit of the Phuket beaches, to something like their best, the streets were empty and the restaurants and bars were struggling to stay open.
The tourist shops and bars had been doing good business since the 1980s, when Thailand became popular with backpackers. It was the top destination in Southeast Asia because of its free-and-easy atmosphere, friendly people, beautiful beaches, cheap and tasty food, and endless sun. By the time Alex Garland’s novel The Beach had been given the Di Caprio treatment, the hippy dream was fast disappearing, with all the remote beaches explored, and hotel development beginning to eat up the virgin coastline.
But the backpackers trimmed their hair and hid their tattoos, settled down to jobs, and became more affluent. The tourist hotels evolved and improved and began to attract them back as tourists paying premium prices. The spa holiday boom in the 1990s capitalised on the traditional massage skills of the locals, the soothing climate, and the relaxing ambience of the country. Family hotels began to appear to cater to a new market, and then boutique hotels. Soon there was something for everyone in this long, sprawling peninsula. You could research tribal culture in Chiang Mai in the north, experience the hustle of Bangkok, luxuriate in the fleshpots of Pattaya, wallow in a spa on Koh Samui, cruise to Phuket and ride on an elephant, or braid your hair and try fire-juggling on the beach at Koh Lanta.
Which is why, only eight months after the disaster, encouraged by reports of reconstructed resorts and beaches cleaner than ever before, the UK tourists are flocking back in droves…. It seems that the energy, grit, and enthusiasm of its people and the sheer variety of the holidays available has brought the country back from the brink of disaster. And now, for all sorts of reasons, there really has never been a better time to visit Thailand.
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