SE Asia: The tourists will return but at whose costs?

As the death toll in the aftermath of the tragic earthquake continues to rise, another disaster unfolds in the form of lost tourism business which, for countries such as Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, drives anywhere from 6% to 20% of the local economy.

While it is far too early to predict the impact of the Tsunamis on tourism a review of hotel RevPar (Revenue per available room) performance based on the Deloitte Hotelbenchmark survey shows that, post September 11th, SARS and the Iraq wars, there was a sharp drop in demand but within 12 to 18 months, recovery had set in and, by early 2004 the industry as a whole was almost at pre-September 11th levels of Revpar. Over the medium to long term, the industry has proved to be fairly resilient to such shocks, as evidenced by the relatively stable 12 month rolling Revpar for each of the three regions of the world."