PHUKET: The Andaman Travel Trade Fair embraces a concept that far-sighted people advocate, but that administrators of the region have yet to fully understand.

For the first time on Friday and Saturday, tourism-related businesses on Phuket and in the surrounding provinces joined forces to talk to their most valued customers.

Along with Phuket, Phang Nga, Krabi, Satun, Trang and Ranong were represented at the two-day gathering in Phuket City Phuket Rajabhat University.

What the Tourism Authority of Thailand and other marketers now recognise is that Phuket has become the air hub for the region, although Krabi also has a growing number of direct flights.

More and more, visitors are turning left at Phuket International Airport to continue their holiday in natural destinations that have not been urbanised like Phuket.

While Phuket continues to attract growing numbers of tourists, those numbers are generally coming from a different market.

The Phuket ''pioneers,'' the visitors who came to Phuket before 2004 because it was a beautiful natural destination, have already moved on to quieter places.

What Thailand's administrators need to recognise is that the beautiful places in the provinces surrounding Phuket need to be properly protected in ways that Phuket's beautiful spots have not been.

While it remains true that Phuket has many appealing attributes, over time Phuket's natural appeal has suffered as the beaches and the reefs have attracted greater numbers.

Only with the greatest endeavor now will some of this deterioration be slowed or reversed. That's why Thailand's new government needs a strategy to save the Andaman by combining the administrations of the Andaman region province into a single ''task force.''

Inevitably, local entrepreneurs in the provinces around Phuket will want their tourism industries to boom, too. But the wrong kind of development will lead to a bust across the whole Phuket region.

Persuading people to resist the urge to make a quick baht is not easy. Governors with short-term appointments to provinces feel the urge to promote the fastest possible path to economic prosperity for their constituents.

Convincing them and their business communities that it's in Thailand's best interests to proceed slowly but surely, and above all to preserve the wide open spaces that are still evident beyond Phuket, will not be easy.

The two-day trade festival appeared to be a good start. Jutaporn Rengrana-Asa, the Deputy Director of the TAT (Europe, Africa, Middle East and the US) told Phuketwan that a total of 322 overseas businesses from 28 countries had sent representatives to the fair, where 160 local businesses were exhibitors.

''Buyers can now make a 'road map' for their tours that incorporates Phuket and locales with much more tranquility to offer,'' she said. ''People can match their customers to a variety of destinations throughout the entire region.''

The Andaman would play a vital role in helping the whole country to recover from the damaging economic consequences of the central province floods, she said.

Another Andaman Travel trade fair was likely to be held just as soon as the recovery had been achieved, she said.