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SOn the busy Ton Sai Bay Corso last Saturday, it was hard to see that Thailand’s tourism industry was in the dark. Crowds of visitors—shoes and smartphones aloft—were disembarking from an armada of tourist boats and heading ashore.
Ton Sai day-trippers to Phi Phi Don, the largest island in the Phi Phi Islands group, stop for lunch at cacophonous, hangar-like restaurants, where crowds of people eat cheap buffets efficiently. Afterward, they pack the beach for the obligatory selfies, with chic influencers in straw fedoras and diaphanous beachwear seeking refuge in search of a few square feet of uncrowded sand to preserve Fifi’s Instagram legend.
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And still, to the Thai tour guide standing nearby, a boy with a floppy ear and earrings, the sight is haunting. Breathing through broken teeth and the population is “not even half” of what it was before the pandemic began in early 2020, he said.
“There are no Chinese here,” agrees one visitor, scanning the faces of a soft-spoken Shanghainese immigrant living in the UK, mostly Middle Eastern, South Asian and European. Beijing’s draconian Covid restrictions have dried up Thailand’s biggest tourism market. Its revival is being eagerly awaited by all levels of the kingdom’s tourism industry, but will world-famous islands like Fife be able to cope with business as usual?
The fate of Phi Phi’s most famous attraction, Maya Bay, is as a warning.
This photo taken on April 9, 2018 shows tourists sunbathing and walking along Maya Bay, Phi Phi, Thailand.
LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA/AFP via Getty Images
The dangers of over-tourism
Maya Bay, by Fifi Leigh, is famous as a location in Danny Boyle’s 2000 flick. The beach, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Part of Hat Nopfarat Tara-Mu Ko Phi Phi National Park, the stunning cave is surrounded by dramatic cliffs and features a beautiful, 250-meter white moon rope that’s the platonic ideal of a beach.
In the wake of the film, there was a flash flood of visitors to Maya Bay. As many as 4,000 tourist boats board them, scaring off the black tip sharks that damage the coral and use the bay as a spawning ground. Many people stepped on the delicate sea floor. To stop further damage, authorities closed Maya Bay to tourists in June 2018.
When it reopened in January this year, visitors were limited to 380 per hour, not per day. Boating is prohibited, as is swimming. Tourists had to disembark at a pontoon pier at nearby Loh Sama Bay and then proceed to Maya. It wasn’t enough. Environment Minister Varut Silpa-Archa said that even with the new measures, Maya Bay was “flooded” during Songkran – the country’s New Year holiday in April.
At the beginning of August, the famous cave was closed again for two months, coinciding with the low season. It’s like robbing the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Coliseum in Rome.
Wave conditions permitting, tourist boats now bob at the beach entrance for a few minutes, so disgruntled surfers can snap a photo from a distance and then proceed to Pileh Lake. The latter is another social media hotspot and it’s easy to see why tourism is both a blessing and a curse for these small islands. At Pyle, party boats blare loud music against the stunning limestone cliffs, as dim-witted day-trippers make their way down waters that have seen better days. Plastic bottles and cigarettes are washed on the rocks.
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Ton Tamrongnawasawat, a marine scientist at Bangkok’s Kassart University and an expert on Maya Bay, told TIME that 70-80% of the coral reef was intact 30 years ago. In the year During the three-year closure, Ton and others replanted tens of thousands of new pieces of coral, and only 50% of them survived.
But reversing decades of damage can be difficult, if not impossible. “As a marine scientist, if you try to close the bay permanently, it’s my pleasure,” Ton says. But he admits that in Thailand, where tourism accounts for a fifth of GDP, the preservation of marine ecosystems can be a hardship for local people.
Two popular jumping-off points for the islands are Phuket and Krabi, just an hour and 45 minutes by speedboat from Phi Phi. The importance of both places to foreign holiday makers cannot be overstated.
On the streets of Phuket, tourism seems to have it all: every storefront offers boat trips, taxi services, car and scooter rentals, visa runs, strong cocktails, snorkels, massages, boba tea, plates of pad thai or laundry. Sometimes they offer all of the above with signs written in English, Russian and Chinese.
“We didn’t have income for two years” because of the outbreak, said one operator who books tours, runs a mini-laundry and chauffeurs tourists in his family’s Toyota. “Luckily we were able to rent our house, otherwise we would have had no income.”
In the year Women pose in front of a sign on Patong Beach, Phuket Island, on Oct. 28, 2021, as the country prepares to welcome visitors fully vaccinated against the Covid-19 coronavirus from Nov. 1.
MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP via Getty Images
Thailand and sustainable travel
Andrew Hewett, who runs the Phi Phi Island Coral Nursery, doesn’t see much benefit to Maya Bay for the current two-month closure. He said closing in high season would be more effective: “Closing when there’s a lot of people – then you’re reducing the impact a lot.” Guides need to learn about the bay’s sustainable potential, Hewett added.
That will not be an easy task. Phi Phi tours are marketed as sebaritic photo opportunities rather than trips to ecologically endangered sites. They are also affordable. A full-day, guided tour can be arranged to Phi Phi, snorkelling, kayaking, lunch, soft drinks, taking in local spots such as Monkey Beach, “Viking” Cave and Pileh Lake. , and snacks are thrown in.
Each tour provides income to many people besides travel agents, operators and tour guides. There are minivan drivers who will pick you up from your hotel and take you to the pier. The crew of the boat; people who rent snorkels, flippers, towels and deck chairs; the restaurants and all their employees; Old ladies selling coconut ice cream and sticky rice at Ton Sai Bay; Hawks offering bags of frozen pineapple; Local shop with sun hats and sunscreen stock; Boats that take you around the lakes on wooden skiffs; And the freelance photographers who follow you around the islands capture your every move and email you dozens of thumbnails for you to look at at the end of the day. Limiting this army of people and persuading them to pay quotas is always an uphill battle.
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“Right.”
Anwar Abdullah, founder of Ocean Quest Global, which helped replenish Maya Bay’s reefs, echoes public sentiment when he says the cave should ultimately be sold to the mainstream market, not mass market access, and that the high price should be sold as a deterrent.
“The extra price you pay [will] It really helps preserve this heritage,” he told TIME. “When we think about heritage, a hundred or two centuries from now – we think about future generations. If we don’t recover these savings, humanity has nowhere to go.
But for those whose modest livelihoods are based on Phi Phi, it’s challenging to think beyond today. “are you happy?” I saw the young guide from Ton Sai, the sound of the speedboat taking the travelers to their next stop. “Yes,” they answer, with a hint of uncertainty.
“In Thailand, everyone is happy!” He replies.
–Reported by Aidyn Fitzpatrick/Phuket and Phi Phi
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