Crisis Casts Fresh Shadow Over Holiday Hotspot

If it was maximum economic impact they hoped to cause, the protesters confronting Thailand's government would have been hard-pressed to have come up with a more damaging target than Suvarnabhumi international airport.

The steel and concrete complex, which boasts the world tallest control tower, lies at the heart of Thailand's tourist economy. The country attracts 14.5 million visitors a year - 860,000 of them from Britain - lured by azure waters, palm-fringed beaches and rolling jungles.

But the abrupt closure of the £2.5bn airport that opened just over two years ago has cast a pall over a business experiencing the gloom of a slowdown wrought by the global downturn.

Not only has the shutdown affected immediate arrivals and departures for the £10.4bn business that accounts for 6% of the Thai economy, but it has done so at the start of the peak holiday season, when Europeans in particular flock to Thailand for affordable winter sun.

Economists recently downgraded the outlook for Thai economic growth from about 5.2% to 4%. Some have estimated that losses in the tourism trade could hit £2.6bn, about 1.5% of GDP, this year.

The tourism ministry plans to use Thai Airways planes at a military airbase to fly the most needy passengers to Malaysia or Singapore within the next 48 hours, so they can catch onward services.

Officials announced the plan to use U-Tapao, which was used by American troops during the Vietnam war, to relieve the buildup of frustrated tourists, even suggesting new travelers might be brought in to Thailand on empty planes on the return journeys.

Suvarnabhumi handles 125,000 passengers a day, about 40 million annually. Ninety per cent of travelers entering Thailand arrive there, making it one of the busiest airports in south-east Asia.