The week-long forced closure of Bangkok's airports has hit Thailand's hotel industry harder than the devastating 2004 tsunami, a senior official from the Thai Hotels Association has claimed.

Surapong Techaruwichitr, vice president of the Thai Hotels Association, told The Times that fewer than a quarter of hotel rooms in Thailand were currently filled, and there were high-end hotels recording single digit occupancy rates.

"It's 20 to 25 per cent occupancy overall in Thailand now," he said. "Usually at this time it's 75 to 80 per cent. It is worse than the tsunami."

Militant anti-government protestors from the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD)stormed Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang airports on November 25 and brought Thailand's international hub to a shuddering halt as it demanded the resignation of then Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat.

After Mr Wongsawat resigned and his government was disbanded by the Constitutional Court a week ago the militants left the airports.

But the damage has lasted long after the protesters packed up their ags and went home.

Mr Surapong said high-end hotels had been hit particularly hard.

"Some of the five-star hotels which are aiming for very high-yield passengers, people who are very careful about their security – these people still don't have the confidence to come to Thailand," he said.

"Even the three and four star hotels have only 20 to 25 per cent occupancy."

Most five-star luxury hotels have been coy about revealing their occupancy rates, but in recent days the echoing emptiness of many gleaming lobbies has told a tale of dire straits.

"Occupancy levels last week were single-digit in some cases," said Dale Lawrence, a spokesman for the Pacific Asia Travel Association, adding he had heard of one top-end hotel with a six per cent occupancy rate and one with a seven per cent rate.

The Bangkok-based executive said it was important that the travel industry and the government spoke with one voice to let the world know Thailand was again open for business.

Mr Andrew Wood, general manager of the 400-room five-star Chao Phya Park Hotel in Bangkok, said his hotel had slumped to seven per cent occupancy during the airports closure, but the rate had since recovered a little and it was hovering in the 40 per cent range, compared with a usual rate for this time of year of more than 80 per cent.

Nine major conventions scheduled for Thailand had already been cancelled, he said. "It's had a colossal negative effect," he said, referring to the airports closure. "Some of the hotels on the river still have just a handful of guests."

Thailand's National Economic and Social Development Board estimates the direct and knock-on costs of the airport closures at more than 137 billion baht (2.6 billion pounds). The tourism industry accounts for six per cent of Thailand's gross domestic product, and the former Thai government warned of as many as one million jobs lost as a direct result of the closures.

Yet Mr Surapong said he expected Thailand to bounce back fairly quickly – adding that the season following the tsunami had been healthy for tourism in most parts of the nation. Tourism authorities in the southern Thailand destinations of Krabi, Phuket and Phang Nga have complained that tourism in the south had only recently recovered from the tsunami, Mr Surapong said, but their woes did not apply to the whole of Thailand.

"Many hotels were destroyed and infrastructure was destroyed in the south," he said. "Those destinations, which were directly hit by the tsunami - the recovery took three to four years."

The southern tourism authorities have said they will ask the government for reduced taxes and soft loans to weather the current storm, and Mr Surapong said a high-level government committee had been looking into financial assistance, including soft loans for hotels and travel agencies, as well as a promotional push to kick-start Thai tourism again.

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