Phuketwan News Analysis
THERE are no lifeguards on any of the beaches on the popular holiday resort island of Phuket as a wrangle about who pays for equipment and training places the lives of swimmers at risk.
The island's administrative body, the Orborjor, has also taken away surf boards and other paraphernalia that could be vital if someone finds themselves in distress and signals for help.
Phuket's reputation as a safe year-round destination has already been damaged by the revelation that needless drownings took place on popular west coast beaches all through the dangerous monsoon season that runs from April to November.
News that the island has no official lifeguards on beaches including Patong, Karon and Kata comes as the high season begins and thousands of tourists flock to the island for holidays.
''To have thousands of visitors and locals unprotected at Phuket's beaches is just amazing,'' one water safety expert told Phuketwan, preferring to remain anonymous.
Having only last month introduced insurance for jet-skis after an international uproar over scandalous extortion scams on its beaches, Phuket now faces the prospect of a new round of diplomatic anger.
It is difficult for anyone from countries where the safety of people in the water is a high priority to understand how a contractual dispute could be allowed to leave tourists at risk.
Yet that is what is happening as an argument about funding runs out of control once again. Even locals are angry.
Phuketwan was advised that the equipment had been taken from the beaches by a contact who operates a small business at a southern beach, and who realises the potential harm that lack of lifeguards and equipment will cause.
However, the elected CEO of the Orborjor, Paiboon Upatising, sees it differently. He said yesterday that the contract with the private company to provide lifeguards had ended. As a result, the Orborjor had also taken away from the beaches the life-saving equipment it owned.
''We will probably have lifeguards again by early next year,'' he said. ''High season is a safer time for swimming.''
The Orborjor has to again go through the process of calling for tenders for the lifeguard contract, a process that in the past has led to Phuket's beaches being unprotected for many months.
Even with the lifeguards in place, drownings at Karon, Patong, and other well-known beaches increased dramatically in the monsoon season this year . . . just as resorts took up a ''summer'' marketing campaign designed to persuade visitors that Phuket was a great year-round destination.
While the Orborjor has just won an award for anti-corruption procedures, Khun Paiboon's attitude to the safety of visitors and locals in the water will not impress ambassadors and honorary consuls.
''People come to Phuket in high season to have fun,'' the water safety expert said. ''There are still waves in high season. People drink, and then go in the water. At some beaches, there are not even warning signs about the dangers.
''Some people who come as visitors have very little experience in the water. It's a highly dangerous situation to leave the beaches without lifeguards.''
One group that could help, the Phuket Lifesaving Club, is unable to submit a tender because it would need to change to a society first. One club contact said that the club had done as much as it could to help the Orborjor, where the concern seemed to be more about contractual rights than lives.
Much of the problem stems from the tendering system, which leaves the Orborjor unable to find the right answer to the the core question: What's it worth to save lives?
A second question arises. What will the cost be to Thailand's tourism industry when holidaymakers learn there is no protection at Phuket's star beaches?
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Mmm, i spent the "monsoon" season swimming at patong beach when the "lifeguards" were there and people still drowned, the biggest issue is no signage warning punters of the dangers, that would be more value than the beach boys who rarely acted to stop people and spent most of their time chatting up farang chicks.
Posted by up-to-you on December 2, 2009 08:52