South East Asian countries participating in Helsinki Travel Fair

Charter flights to Phuket to resume in February

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All countries affected by the tsunami disaster in December are present at the 2005 Helsinki International Travel Fair, which opens to the public today at the Helsinki Fair Centre.
      It appears that the tsunami has not decreased the overall willingness of Finns to travel.
      The period of mourning can be witnessed at the stand of the state travel agency of Thailand, as no brochures for Phuket or Khao Lak are available.
      However, less than ten percent of the accommodation facilities on the island of Phuket were damaged.
     
Finnish holiday tour operators Aurinkomatkat and Tjäreborg plan to resume charter flights to Phuket on February 9th. Khao Lak is not among the available destinations, as the Foreign Ministry has recommended that no Finns travel to Khao Lak or the severely damaged Phi Phi island.
      Hotels on the East coast of Thailand are already sold out.
      The Thai travel agency operates out of Stockholm.Åsa Malmborg, one of their employees, is astonished by the eagerness of Swedes to return to the site of the catastrophe. "Perhaps it is a part of psychological recovery", she muses.
      Finnish travel agents estimate that interrupted and cancelled South East Asian vacations will create losses of 14-15 million euros to the industry.
     
Active holidays are among the themes of this year’s fair. Hiking in Spain or Bulgaria, or even along the Great Wall of China, have become trendy.
      Beach lovers have generally forgotten warnings of earthquakes and other possible natural phenomena more or less instantly, but travellers are expected to familiarise themselves with the geography of their destinations more carefully in the future.
      The Helsinki International Travel Fair is the largest travel-related event in the Nordic region, when measured with the number of visitors. Last year, 73,500 people visited the fair.
      This year’s fair displays 53 countries in addition to Finland. Travel reservations can be made on site.


Links:
  The Helsinki International Travel Fair

Helsingin Sanomat