Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Along Phuket's Patong Beach, memorial signs for tsunami victims have been replaced by banners, advertising fireworks and seafood festivals, and beach remembrance ceremonies have given way to a volleyball tournament, as Thailand embarks on a post-anniversary tourism campaign.

Tourists sunbathed, swam and jogged along the main beach of Thailand's biggest resort island yesterday, after Monday's somber ceremonies marking the first anniversary of the disaster that killed about 220,000 people in 12 countries.

The festive events are aimed at sending out a message that Phuket is ``reborn,'' said Suwalai Pinpradab, director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand for the resort provinces of Phuket, Krabi and Phang Nga. In the ``ceremonies we tried to do our best to give closure'' to memories of the tsunami. Now Thailand has to ``make people confident to come back.''

Thailand's economic growth slowed to 3.9 percent in the first half of 2005, from 6.1 percent last year, partly because of a post-tsunami drop in tourism, which made up 6.4 percent of the nation's $164 billion economy in 2004. Hotel room occupancy in Phuket, in the kingdom's southwest, fell by more than 70 percent in the first six months of 2005.

Now, Phuket's Sala Thai Resort, Kamala Seafood, Barracudas Tour in Krabi, and the Similana Resort in Khao Lak have joined other hotels, restaurants, tour operators, spas, tailors and diving schools offering discounts with a state-backed ``Andaman Grand Sale'' card distributed to visitors until January 28 to help fill empty hotel rooms and airplane seats this high season.

Post-Tsunami Drop

Phuket and nearby mainland Krabi province have recovered to between 70 percent and 80 percent of business for the high season, beginning from November, Suwalai said. She wants an additional 20 million baht budget for marketing this year to help boost arrivals beyond March.

``The high season is for the European market mainly, and they're here, but during the rainy season we need domestic and Asian tourists,'' she said.

The three resort provinces lost more than 43 billion baht ($1 billion) in tourism revenue since the tsunami, she said.

``During the high season it will be OK for us, it's nearly the normal situation before the tsunami, but for the next rainy season I don't know, so we have to do marketing to Asian markets,'' Suwalai said.

Business has recovered to between 60 percent and 70 percent of the normal high season at Ma Ma Restaurant, a small open-air eatery that sells everything from cornflakes for breakfast to Thai lemongrass fish for dinner on the ocean side of Patong Beach.

European Tourists

That's an improvement from less than 50 percent of normal sales for the low season, and has been helped by the return of customers from Europe who holiday on the island every year, according to a waitress who identified herself as Tim.

``It's going up because for the high season many people from Europe come for holidays so it's improving again,'' said Tim, whose mother Kiat owns and cooks for the establishment that has been family-run for nine years. ``It's not the same as before, maybe about 60 to 70 percent, but we're not full, not for a long time.''

Tim, her mother and their staff fled the restaurant after the first wave hit, escaping the full force of the tsunami by running inland. The concrete store was damaged but not destroyed, and was able to open shortly after the disaster.

``More chartered flights are coming from Europe,'' Vichit Na Ranong, president of Tourism Council of Thailand, a trade group of travel agents and other tourism businesses, said in a telephone interview on Dec. 26. ``Still, fewer than expected Asian tourists are coming back because of their superstitious belief about spirits of the dead.''

Still, recovery in Thailand's southwest resorts is uneven. In worst-hit Khao Lak in Phang Nga province, just a handful of resorts have rebuilt and re-opened.

Khao Lak Rubble

Those that have, including Le Meridien Khao Lak and La Flora Resort & Spa, have restored just 20 percent of the 6,000 hotel rooms that used to be full this time of year.

``Phuket and Krabi have strongly rebounded because their hotel, resort and other facilities were damaged not as much as Khao Lak,'' Vichit said. ``For Khao Lak, it will take some time because more than 80 percent of the hotel rooms were damaged.''

Rubble, building ruins and small memorials to those lost now occupy many of Khao Lak's beaches, where resorts used to accommodate hundreds of holidaymakers, keen to dive around the Similan Islands and trek through forests and waterfalls in the area's nature reserves.

``Khao Lak needs some time -- maybe by next high season it will be back to normal,'' said Suwalai.

She is confident most of the resorts in Khao Lak will rebuild, now that most have secured either insurance payouts or state-backed fixed-interest rebuilding loans from banks.

One such hotelier is Virat Songsaeng, owner of Mukdara Resort and Spa in Khao Lak, who lost his daughter in the disaster and is rebuilding.

``I am still conflicted every day. One thought tells me to stop rebuilding because it won't be worth money because people may not come back to Khao Lak with the huge devastation and slow rebuilding,'' Virat said in a phone interview Dec. 26. ``But another thought told me to continue to fight. Hotels have to be rebuilt to boost employment and provide business for people such as shop vendors, restaurants and tourist boat owners.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Beth Jinks in Bangkok at bjinks1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 27, 2005 23:05 EST