Bangkok - The week-long closure of Bangkok's two airports has left the capital's hotels empty, travel agents without travellers and the entire industry waiting for a quick fix to Thailand's political mess that is not likely to materialize.

"This week Bangkok hotels are operating at single-digit occupancy and when all the existing tourists leave I don't think there will be any replacements soon," said Suphawan Tanomkiatipum, marketing director of the Thai Hotels Association.

Bangkok's hotels are slashing their rates by up to 50 per cent this month in an effort to attract domestic tourists, since the foreign ones have vanished.

"Our hotels will be doing a lot of promotions for the domestic market, because that's the only one there is," said Suphawan.

Few countries have ever dealt such a devastating blow to their own tourism sector as Thailand has in the past week.

For an entire week, the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) closed down Bangkok's two international-class airports - Suvarnabhumi International Airport and Don Mueang - in their bid to bring down the government of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat.

On Tuesday, the Constitution Court handed the PAD a victory when it ruled that the People Power Party had violated election laws in the December 23, 2007, polls and dissolved the party, banning its key executives, including Somchai, from politics for the next five years.

The seizure of the airports left an estimated 300,000 tourists stranded in Bangkok, trying desperately to get out via buses, trains and provincial airports.

It also cost the country about 90 million dollars a day in forgone cargo deliveries from Suvarnabhumi and is expected to slice Thailand's tourist arrivals in half next year, down to about 7 million.

"If I get 50 per cent of the bookings I had last December this year, I will be happy," said Luzi Matzig, director of Asian Trails, a tour company specializing in the European market.

"If you have a natural disaster people can understand, but when you have a self-inflicted disaster people have to wonder," said Matzig.

Thailand has had plenty of disasters adversely affecting its tourism industry in recent years.

There was the 9/11 terrorist incident, that made many Western tourists reluctant to get on airliners. Then there was the SARS outbreak in 2003, followed by the avian influenza scare, followed by the December 26, 2004 tsunami, that left more than 5,000 people dead on the beaches of southern Thailand, half of whom were foreign tourists.

But Thailand's tourism industry, buoyed by its reputation for good value vacations, friendly people and fun entertainment, enjoyed a fairly quick recovery from all these previous disasters.

No such rapid rebound is anticipated this time round, partly because the cause of the closure of Bangkok's airports, political instability, has not yet gone away.

"Bringing the tourists back is going to depend on consumer confidence, investor confidence and airline operators' confidence in knowing that the airports are fully functional and there won't be a repeat of the closures," said John Kildowski, research director for the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).

Unfortunately, it is still unclear whether Thailand has solved its political crisis.

The PAD, a loose coalition of groups united only in their desire to keep former premier Thaksin Shinawatra out of power, has vowed to return to the streets if the next government proves to be another "Thaksin proxy."

Since the majority of the elected members of parliament are still pro-Thaksin, there is a high likelihood that another Thaksin crony will be appointed the next prime minister.

The last prime minister, Somchai, was Thaksin's brother-in-law.

"We have not found a solution to the political problem yet," said Matzig, who has worked in Thailand's tourism industry for more than three decades. "We have just cleared the airport."

Although it is unlikely that the PAD will attempt to seize Bangkok's two airports again, given the massive damage the manoeuvre has inflicted on the economy and the negative image it gave the protestors, the fact that they have set a dangerous precedent is going to hang over Thailand's tourism industry for a long time.

"Longer term it will cast a shadow over the destination," said Andrew Herdman, director-general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA). "The disruptive effect on people's long-haul travel plans is going to make people cautious about Thailand."