HONG KONG, China (AP) -- Worries about another deadly tsunami are keeping many tourists from Phuket, the premier resort island of southern Thailand.

But hordes of Asian vacationers are staying away for another reason: Fear that the ghosts of thousands of victims may be haunting the beaches and bungalows.

A widely held superstition in Chinese societies holds that if bodies are not recovered and properly buried, the spirits restlessly wander the world. Some believe the lost souls try to drag living beings into their spiritual limbo land.

"As soon as people try to go into the sea, they start worrying about these things," said Joseph Tung Yao Chung, executive director of the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong.

Six months after the disaster, Tung says Hong Kongers are avoiding Phuket, and travel industry executives in Taiwan, mainland China and South Korea also report the tropical island is no longer a popular destination.

Kang Jung-hoon, who arranges trips for the large Korean travel agency Hanna Tour in Seoul, said people are afraid of ghosts and rumors that bodies are floating around. Kang said that from January to June, only 1,230 customers went to Phuket -- down sharply from the 3,187 who went during the same period last year.

Media reports have helped fuel the superstition in South Korea. The free tabloid Sports Korea recently ran a story about three popular Korean celebrities who were filming a television show in Phuket, saying the stars reported hearing voices at their hotel that they believed were spirits.

More than 5,300 people are known dead and 2,900 more went missing when the tsunami swept over Thailand's southwestern coast on December 26, exactly six months ago Sunday. Many of the victims were tourists from Europe and Asia.

Many beach hotels were quickly repaired, and Thailand's travel industry is aggressively promoting the area with assurances it is making a quick recovery. A government-backed tsunami system to warn beachgoers of any tsunami threat is being installed.

Among the places hit was Phuket's busiest beach, Patong.

Travel agent Jirakan Pattawong said she has noticed the big drop off in Asian tourists there. "Asians used to come here as solo travelers, but now they only come in groups because they're scared to come alone," she said.

The Holiday Inn Resort Phuket on Patong reported a 71 percent decline in room bookings in April and May compared to the same time last year. The hotel said guests from Japan, mainland China and Hong Kong were down 93 percent, 91 percent and 83 percent, respectively.

"The tourists from Australia and the United Kingdom are not worried. They say it's nature, it happened and it is past. They're not scared," said Rapeeporn Thavorn, director of revenue at the Holiday Inn.

Business has been so bad that many Asian airlines cut their direct flights to Phuket. Taiwan's biggest carrier, China Airlines, didn't plan to resume the service until the end of the year, said Joseph Wu, the company's spokesman.

"Now more travelers go to Northeast Asia, especially Japan and South Korea," Wu said. "The tsunami affected the wish of tourists to go to Phuket, but not to Bangkok where we have three to four daily flights."

Tung of Hong Kong's Travel Industry Council said the suspended direct flights also discourage trips to Phuket. He said many tourists do not want to bother with changing planes in Bangkok before flying to the island.

Eric Wu, a Southeast Asia specialist at the Taipei Association of Travel Agents, said sharp discounts haven't helped rekindle interest in Phuket. Tours once priced at $500 have been slashed by half.

Wu estimated that Phuket would need at least three to six more months before showing any signs of recovery.

"The number of deaths in the tsunami was just too high, so there is a strong psychological element," he said.
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Can you really blame those people? I'm sure a couple people wouldn't mind a haunted beach.

I believe some of that area will be haunted by some spirits, I’m not sure I’d stop me from visiting such a beautiful place…

Those people have been thru so much, it is too bad they now have to deal with this i wonder if they would let a prist bless the land or in there case a monk, it would seem there would be some way to lay these people to rest?

Isis, that's a nice thought. It would be good to honor the dead and put things to rest.

When I go to places that have been known to have many deaths, I don't think much about it. I mean I feel bad for the people and respect the dead, but I don't dwell on spirits to the point it inspires fear. So I'd still go to the beaches until I had reason to be scared.

I know what you mean, but in asia they really take this to heart if they do bury there dead,as there traditional state's they fear the spirit will not be able to move on. its really sad,but i don't understand why the groverment does not move in and help, they should understand the culture of there people and try to bring peace to then, they have suffered enought

I sub'd this to the front news thingy a while ago. We'll see if it gets there. I would not want to be walking that beach alone on a midnight. Can you imagine how the breezes would sound....*shivers*
stv

I don't know about everyone else, but I have no more desire to go there (I had thought about it before) because I don't want to die in a tsunami.

So very sad to even think about the destruction and horror some of these people saw with their own eyes. I don't blame them one bit staying away from there. They are deathly afraid of this possibly happening again and this time they won't walk away from it. I can't say I wouldn't want to visit there. Being so very interested in ghost and spirits and such. It would be interesting to see what activity lingers there.

We're going to Bali later in the year, and people have been making comments about bomb threats.

I look at it as if it's your time to go, nothing you do and say will change that.
My friend who is going as well was more worried until she had a serious car accident a couple of weeks ago. If her car didn't have airbags she'd be dead. You've got to live your life.

I can't understand the body being lost/ having a haunting thing.
When your spirit passes over it has no need for it's earthly body anymore. I believe some spirits will have stayed, but they'd be the ones who don't understand they've died or won't let go.

I agree having a special service to help release these spirits and remember all the victims would be nice.

This is true. Yes, I have heard of this. I'm asian and have heard of this on the radio and my family telling me this. They said that there are still soo many unrecovered bodies that are deep under the beach buried and still show up occasionally. I myself lost four of my friends to the Tsunami disaster. They were all in Phuket. They are actually from Texas but live at the hotel they managed called the " The Hotel Sofe or something like that. It was my best friend's sister and her three month old baby, her husband and another friend that was not affiliated with my other friends. She didn't even knowthe waves were coming when it literally crash into and washed away the hotel. If you go to the room where she was staying, there's nothing there. I had to drive to their dentist office to get dental records for the search. A few of the friends in the U.S actually flew there to help aid in the search, they are still missing.

I'm sorry and dont want to be a buthole or anything but these numbers are not correct from the first post.

"More than 5,300 people are known dead and 2,900 more went missing when the tsunami swept over Thailand's southwestern coast on December 26, exactly six months ago Sunday. Many of the victims were tourists from Europe and Asia"

The more accurate numbers are 200,000 dead.

With that many people dying in the same place it would seem a few would stick around to haunt the beaches, but shouldn't there be other massive hauntings at concentration camps, and the beaches of Normandy, or any other battle fields? I have never heard anything about those locations, but then again I haven't looked into it.

I doubt if another one is going to hit anytime soon…but I could be wrong, nature’s actions are anonymous.

You're probably right. Hey, I live in Florida, and we didn't have such a great time last hurricane season, but I'm not planning on moving. I think what someone else said about it being your time is true. If it's your time, it's your time. Period. However, what if it's not my time, and I go there on vacation, and a tsunami hits? I may not die (as it's not my time), but it's still a hell I'd rather do without. Ya know what I mean?

I live in North Carlion so i know what you mean when you guys get hit most of the time so do we; it is a shame that the weather has such deadly power, my heart bleeds for all the people who lost there lives that day, its just hard to take in because there were to many people lost and never found,

If there are ghost, then they are everywhere, the air we breath, the space we walk through and the food we eat. The dead vastly outnumbers the living. Most of the tsunami victims are from Indonesia, it is a rare occurence to get a tsunami in the Indian ocean that is why there is no early warning.

I remember articles on this right after the tsunami. The bleaches were being blessed as fast as they could bless them but I'm sure there are areas they did not cover.

You can see where their fears come from. The Asian's have a strong fear of spirits and many old beliefs in such a modern world. It is unfortunate that the economy there is first devistated by a tsunami and then continued problems from a major slack in tourism.

Hi i'm from HK and been to Phuket maybe about 4 times in in my lifetime so far... Haven't gone back since the Tsunami.

Just to add-on, another reason why Chinese people don't go there anymore is that fish makes up a big part of our diet... its a culture thing to have nice fish a lot at dinner.. and since a lot of the bodies weren't recovered and floating around, the fish must have been nibbling at them etc.... and hence forth we dun wanna eat the fish there!

Anyways besides that there are rumors that you can hear high pitch screams with the wind from the beaches....

I could understand after the tsunami people wouldent eat fish because the fish had been feeding on dead bodies but ghosts keeping people away is a bit much