South Korea's Culture and Tourism Minister Chung Dong-chae, who also chairs the World Tourism Organization (WTO), will convene an emergency WTO executive board meeting to discuss ways to rehabilitate tourism in the tsunami-hit South Asian countries, the ministry said Wednesday.

The emergency executive board meeting of the WTO will be held on the famous Thai island of Phuket on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, said the ministry in a press release.

Representatives from 29 executive board members and the tsunami-hit South Asian nations, such as Thailand, Indonesia, Maldives and Sri Lanka, are to appear in the meeting

The meeting's target is to find measures to help the recovery of the tourism industry in the tsunami-hit regions, the ministry said.

The ever strong earthquake-tsunami destroyed coastlines in South Asia on Dec. 26, 2004 and left more than 140,000 people dead and thousands more missing.

The tourism industrial of those affected countries, such Thailand and Maldives, sufferd great loss from the disaster.

The WTO, a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Madrid, Spain, is the leading international organization in the field of travel and tourism, with 144 member states.

South Korea, which joined the WTO in 1975, was elected to hold the rotating chair for the year 2005 at its annual executive committee meeting in Salvador, Brazil, in December 2004.