WAITING FOR THE TOURISTS:

Maldives fears damage to tourism infrastructure will cripple economy

The Straits Times (Singapore), February 25, 2005

The acronym for the Maldives Association of Tourism Industry is Mati.

Thankfully, Maldivians do not recognise the Malay word for death. And I
see no need to mention it to Mati's secretary-general, Mr Sim Mohamed.

He already has a lot on his mind. When I meet him at his office in the
capital city of Male, he is busy on the phone, his brows furrowed.

It is late January and while the Maldives, compared to the other
tsunami-hit regions, seems to be recovering at a decent clip, he is
worried.

While human casualties were relatively small - 82 killed, 26 missing and
15,000 displaced - they are still substantial, considering this is a
nation of only 300,000 people.

His biggest fear is that the country's main industry - tourism - will
suffer, leading to a crippling of the economy.

The Maldives has a per capita income of US$2,400 (S$4,000) and is heavily
dependent on tourism. The waves damaged 20 out of the 87 resort islands.

Says Mr Mohamed: 'Resort occupancy is down 20 to 30 per cent. Some resorts
are losing up to US$10,000 a day. How long we can absorb these losses I
don't know.

'The government has deferred rentals - paid by the hotels every three
months - giving them nine months to do so.

'But we are asking for more concessions, like an exemption on duties and
taxes on materials which are needed to rebuild the resorts. We are also
asking for help in negotiating insurance claims and in stepping up
marketing efforts to get tourists back.'

An archipelago of 1,192 tiny islands, of which 199 are inhabited, the
Maldives is almost 99 per cent sea.

All the superlatives associated with holiday brochures hold true here. The
waters are of the brightest azure, the night sky is lit with
diamond-bright stars and the tourist islands - each housing only one
resort as per government regulation - are as close to paradise as you can
get.

Rebuilding these remote islands, accessible only by seaplane or boat, will
take months and cost an estimated US$1.5 billion, or twice the nation's
GDP.

Like the inhabitants of many other islands here, Mafushi's 1,500 residents
either fish for a living or work in nearby resorts.

Others run souvenir and snack shops, catering to the 50 or 60 tourists who
drop by daily from the neighbouring tourist islands of Rannalhi and
Fihaalhohi.

But not anymore.

Today, the coast is destroyed - a beige and brown pock-marked stretch,
dotted with debris and the smell of uprooted toilets. They are lucky if
six or seven tourists arrive in a week.

You could say the people here are lucky, as nobody died in the tsunami.
But with many houses and shops destroyed, and their livelihood
jeopardised, the islanders pass their days under a pall of uncertainty.

Mr Ibrahim Mustapha, 29, who works at a souvenir shop, says: 'We don't
know what we are going to do. We can't fish because our boats are still
being repaired. We don't know when the tourists are coming back. We are
just waiting.'

The same can be said for the afflicted islands of Ghuraidoo and Kuda
Huraa, where the Four Seasons resort is.

You see the tsunami trademarks - shuttered houses, flattened landscapes
and the eerie silence of nothingness broken only by sounds of children
laughing. Or crying. People move slowly, sifting through rubble or walking
aimlessly.

In the Maldives, there is an additional casualty not found in the other
tsunami-hit regions - heaps of broken coral which produce an agonising
crunch when you step on them. Thankfully, investigations have now shown
that damage to the reefs has been minimal.

Professor Jack Carlsen, co-director of the Sustainable Tourism Centre at
Australia's Curtin University of Technology, is one of the experts
enlisted by Mati to help revive the nation's tourism sector.

He says: 'The reef systems are not damaged and in fact saved the islands
from worse impact as they acted like a sponge to absorb the wave energy
and channel the waters away from the islands.'

At 6.30am on Dec 26, Mr Salil Panigrahi felt his apartment in Male shake.
He was on the sixth floor.

He quickly left the building and, after the tremor subsided, made his way
to a travel agency to book a ticket back to India, where his wife and two
children had returned for the holidays.

'Halfway, the travel agent suddenly just ran away. I turned around and saw
this huge tidal wave coming towards me,' he says, with an odd laugh.

He ran inland for safety. But it was only the start of a long and eventful
day for the director of finance for Six Senses, a luxury resort and spa
company which owns and runs the exclusive Soneva Gili and Soneva Fushi
resorts in the Maldives.

The Soneva Gili, which has 44 rooms built on stilts, suffered damage to
the tune of US$3 million and had to close down, although there were no
casualties.

'The hotel called me and I had to do crisis management over the next three
hours, evacuating tourists,' he recalls.

Today, the Gili is being repaired, at a cost of US$5 million.

'While 70 per cent of our rooms are still intact, we're taking the
opportunity to reinforce and refurbish all the rooms,' he says.

He expects the resort to be operational sometime in June, which is,
unfortunately, the start of the low tourist season. Forty per cent of the
year's tourism revenue is earned in the high season months of February to
April.

'So we are speeding up reconstruction only to hit a low season. Last year,
people's wages were doubled. But now with the tsunami, we expect wages to
come down about 30 per cent,' he says, with a shrug.

But he has no doubt that the Maldives will recover, if only because its
people are resilient and determined.

'Feelings are mixed. Some think there is no hope for the country. When I
was walking back to my house after the tsunami, I was thinking of
Nostradamus myself. It's only natural.

'But people here are practical. They know they have to get up every day to
fish,' he adds.