Rocketing global oil prices have driven Thailand's small tourist agencies out of for increasing travel costs.

The climbing oil prices have at least doubled travel costs, which have forced at least 30 travel agencies to close down so far this year, The Nation newspaper reported on Monday.

"It's likely that only the big players will survive. New firms with smaller profits are in trouble," Anek Srichevachart, president of the Thai Travel Agent Association, was quoted as saying.

He noted that large numbers of new operators had started in the past year, but the spiraling oil prices and impact of the bird-flu outbreak were likely to shut many of them down.

Tourists in some key markets such as China's Hong Kong and Japan might reconsider traveling to Thailand due to bird flu and the higher cost of travel, said Anek.

"We have not seen signs of cancellations from overseas tourists over the next three months, which is the peak season. But we're afraid that we might lose out on next year's booking," he said.

Other operators in the tourism business also have the same concern.

The Thai Hotels Association earlier warned that international travelers could think twice about making trips to Thailand because of higher airfare and fuel surcharge.

The association said the overall tourism outlook for Asia will not be affected significantly compared with other regions for Asia's growing economy.

However, if oil prices keep rising into 2005, hotel operators will need to raise their rates, The Nation quoted a hotel operator as saying.

On the other hand, the Thai government maintained that bird flu and higher oil prices have no remarkable influence over the number of visitors to the kingdom.

Statistics of the Tourism and Sports Ministry showed that there are still an average of 25,000-30,000 visitors arriving in the country daily.

Minister Sontaya Kunplome said he's still confident that the government will achieve its target figure of 12 million visitors to Thailand in 2004, according to the state-run Thai News Agency.

(Xinhua News Agency October 11, 2004)