Auch im Bang Niang Beach Resort wird gebaut: die beschaedigten doppelstoeckigen Gebaeude werden repariert, die zerstoerten Bungalows werden neu aufgebaut. (Im Hintergrund das reparierte Apartmenthaus vom Ladda Resort.)

Es geht voran in Ban Bang Niang

Joe Steakhouse ist im Bau             Restaurant im Ladda Resort

Cousin Resort: Reihenhaus     Neue Strandstrasse am Bang Niang Beach      Raveewans House wird renoviert

Peters Haus ist bereits begruent                            Sanuk Bungalows im Bau

Drei Bungalows am Strand haben bereits Daecher     Monsunwellen am Bang Niang Beach        

   Amsterdam Resort

Cousin Resort    

  Sanuk Resort      Ladda Resort

Open for business

Even with much rebuilding still to do, Khao Lak's future looks promising

DON ROSS

Two months after the tsunami struck the Khao Lak coastline, small resort owners still face uncertainty and are hoping that the promises the prime minister delivered at a meeting last weekend will clear the way for them to begin rebuilding in earnest.

Representing 23 resorts, the Khao Lak Group of SME resorts presented a document outlining its concerns to the prime minister during a previous visit and is now hoping that the new government will speed up assistance and guidelines on redevelopment so its members can start rebuilding their businesses.

Travel guide writer and owner of what was once Dream Villas, Richard Doring, who represents the group, presented an impassioned plea during last Saturday's televised meeting between the prime minister and the Khao Lak tourism industry representatives.

All 23 resort owners, said Doring, lost relatives and friends, properties and homes. Out of a sense of desperation they penned a Memorandum of Understanding that bound them together into possibly the first SME resort group in the country.

Together they represent 1,000 rooms that disappeared from the face of the earth on December 26. They believe their family-run resorts were the heart and soul of Khao Lak, places where visitors returned to year after year and formed lasting friendships.

All the owners of the group want to re-open their resorts by November 1 this year, Doring reported to the meeting, but added that they are still in the clean-up phase and only a few of the owners have started to grade the land and replace lost soil.

Outlining the optimistic recovery timetable adopted by the group, he told the prime minister that guests who visited Khao Lak every year wanted to return and help their friends in the recovery process, but messages sent out by the Tourism Authority of Thailand office in Germany were negative and should be stopped immediately.

After Prime Minister Thaksin's visit to Khao Lak we believe the reconstruction work will now start in earnest, Doring commented. Prior to the visit they had their doubts. In the wake of the destruction the resort owners listened to local officials explain that the no-build line for resort buildings would be re-drawn to within 100m of the high-water mark. One stroke of the pen would have left them with less than 30 percent of their land for construction.

Now it appears that the Land Management Department has agreed that the original 30m mark was far enough inshore. Inland of that mark, resort owners can now rebuild.

Of course, SME resorts fear that the 30m rule may not apply to everyone equally at Khao Lak.

Photographs taken after the disaster show that many of the five-star resorts were built to the edge of the shoreline. Some had their expensive villas with individual spas just metres from the high-water mark.

The positioning of swimming-pools and al fresco restaurants would indicate a very flexible tape measure was employed to determine the distance from the high-tide mark.

Predictably the SME owners bemoan a lack of transparency, and wish to secure a level playing field for all participants, both rich and poor. So can we expect to see encroachment of the 30m rule return when Khao Lak's resorts re-open this November?

Environmentally, Khao Lak's resort owners face a daunting challenge. Most of the small resorts on the 12 km beachfront stood on sandy top soil that was washed away.

Doring identifies the problems resort owners face. Do they truck-in red soil as landfill or use expensive sand imported from other beach areas?

We were told the best solution would be to use a dredger to move sand from the sea back to the land, but who can afford that kind of operation, he asks?

Like other resort owners, if he is going to meet the November 1 deadline he will opt for truckloads of red soil.

Despite the obstacles, at least six properties with 348 rooms have already re-opened along the Khao Lak coast.

Andaburi Resort, with 68 rooms, one of the few properties to escape damage, technically remained open throughout the disaster. Its rooms are 1,300 baht a night.

Khao Lak Merlin Resort, located just south of the Khao Lak headland, lost 40 ground floor rooms and villas, but 169 rooms in the main block where all the utilities were located escaped undamaged. It remained open, accommodating relief workers, government officials and travel industry executives surveying the damage. All the damaged rooms will re-open by mid-March.

Similana Resort has 30 rooms open while repairs get underway on 45 damaged rooms.

Khao Lak Natural Resort re-opened 37 rooms, occupied mainly by relief workers and engineers working at other resorts. Volunteers pay just 200 baht a night.

Phu Khao Lak Resort has just 20 rooms open at 400 baht a night.

Located high on the southern headland of Khao Lak bay, Baan Krating Khao Lak also escaped damage and has 24 rooms open. Its rate is 2,800 baht a night.

There are still another 50 resorts representing 5,000 rooms that were either demolished or so seriously damaged that it could take a year or more to rebuild them. Resort owners agree it will take until November for Khao Lak's tourism business to recover and even then some scars will remain to remind us of the tragedy for many years to come.

Officially the Tourism Authority of Thailand says we cannot receive any tourists for a very long time to come. Our view is that resorts are re-opening, Khao Lak has over 20 restaurants operating now and three dive shops have recommenced trips to the Similan Islands. So Khao Lak's traditional resorts have a future and we want travel agents in Europe to know that, he added.

Doring has a website, www.khaolakbeach.de/Erfolge.htm, that represents the group's properties.

Der Wiederaufbau von Khao Lak im Rueckblick
(Ein Fragebogen: April 2007)

Brandneues aus Thailand
(September 2014)

The Khao Lak Website in English

List of surviving staff
... and their situation today
(Neu: 20.4.2007)

Spenden fuer Khao Lak
(Neu: 5.10.2007)

Bungalow-Patenschaften in Khao Lak

Google:
google.de