Thailand tempting tourists

Thailand is beginning to attract more tourists to its shores after numbers fell following the Boxing Day tsunami last year, according to a senior tourism official.

Although 12 million holiday-makers flocked to the south-east Asian country in 2005, this was below the 13.8 million expected by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).

But there are high hopes this year, and the TAT expects to meet the same 13.8 target after witnessing impressive growth in the first quarter.

Arrivals were up by 37 per cent in January, 30 per cent in February, and 20 per cent in March, compared to the same months in 2005.

Juthamas Siriwan, governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, said: "When there was the tsunami last year, I thought that was the end of the tourism industry but we recovered very fast, in only six months."

The south-east Asian tsunami killed more than 5,000 people in Thailand, striking some of its most popular beaches where many foreign tourists were holidaying.

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