Our aim is to offer information about what is happening on Lanta as well as in our dive shop. Obviously this issue will be dedicated largely in part to the tsunami as well as where we will be going from here.
Lanta faces another very different kind of threat
On the 26th December 2004 Ko Lanta, an island on the west coast of Thailand was hit by a tidal wave at approximately 11.00 a.m. in what was and still is, a great tragedy.
The death toll was 11 people and there were varying degrees of damage to resorts, bars and restaurants.
We have been extremely lucky that the situation has not been anywhere near as bad as in Phuket, Phi Phi or Khao Lak. However, Ko Lanta faces another danger now and that is the fact that this is an island where the majority of the population make the money they need to survive from tourism. People here cannot afford to find themselves being boycotted by tourists who have been fed the information that all of the western coast of Thailand is a no go area with diseases running rampant.
We have been extremely fortunate here, but unfortunately we must now make an effort to get back to normal life as there are too many people on this island who depend on us doing so. Go Dive campaign to attract tourism
Go Dive Lanta has initiated a campaign in which it will ask tourists who are leaving the island to distribute leaflets in different parts of the country and region to which they are traveling.
This leaflet will explain to tourists that Ko Lanta is very much open for business in an attempt to avoid a boycott of Ko Lanta, which would cause a very serious economic impact in the region on top of the one already caused by the tsunami. Just what Ko Lanta needs
Lee from England and Justine from New Zealand were in Ko Lanta when the tsunami hit. In fact, they both had to run from it as it hit the beach and they helped evacuate people to higher ground.
Since then they have been helping the owners of the resort where they are staying by cleaning up end helping them to re-open. |
|
Lanta Sea Pearl resort is open for business again and Lee and Justine are now doing their Padi Open Water course here at Go Dive Lanta just as they had planned to do before the disaster. Our first course of 2005!
|
Dive Shops decide to open on 2nd January 2005
Dive shops on Ko Lanta had a very difficult choice to make: To reopen or to remain closed?
We all felt it was our obligation to help get this island, that had given us so much, back onto its feet.
|
|
The only way to do this was by doing what we have been doing up to now and that is getting tourists to come here to enjoy the diving. Obviously, as a consequence, they will stay at the resorts, eat at the restaurants, drink at the bars and buy at the shops where the locals depend on them to survive.
These are the cold bare facts and the challenge that we, the dive centers, face at the moment.
3rd January 2005
Go to Top  |
