- Tourism News
Beam me up Phuket – new space theme hotel for the island
A 150 key space themed hotel is under development in Kathu, Phuket, by a Singaporean group . Located close to the Central Festival and Makro complexes, the project is expected to open next year according to a report in TTG Asia. The One Pioneer – Beyond Space Travel hotel say it’s “highly focused on an outer space storyline and will have…
- Property
Boat Pattana’s Cherng Talay villa project reports strong pre-sales
Thai developer Boon Yongsakul’s latest development Shambala Grand Villa in Cherng Talay is experiencing strong pre-launch sales. With 22 available units, the Boat Pattana group has already reserved 17 units. The landed properties feature two bedroom pool villas with land plots ranging from 300 to 600 square metres. Property management is through an affiliated company and buyers are offered a 6% guaranteed…
- Property
Wyndham to manage new condo at Layan Beach Phuket
by Bill Barnett A new Wyndham managed condominium hotel is rising in the Layan Beach area of Phuket. Named the Laya Resort Phuket, the first phase of the project is 300 units of studio and one-bedroom configuration. The new development will be situated about 400 metres from Layan Beach. Pricing starts from 150,000 baht a square metre and a 15…
- Tourism News
Phuket Airport passenger arrivals dip
by Bill Barnett, c9Hotelworks.com To date, 2019 is shaping up to be a slightly volatile year for tourism to the island. Passenger arrivals at Phuket International Airport rose 1% year-on-year in January, but took a step backwards in February with a substantial 6% decline. While we are still early in the year, overall visitor arrivals to Thailand on a country-wide…
- Business News
Phuket hotel watch – trends in 2019
by Bill Barnett of C9Hotelworks.com At the beginning of the year Phuket’s tourism and hotel sector was cautiously optimistic after a strong first half of 2018 and humbling second half. Key terms that kept popping up were Mainland Chinese, Thai Baht Appreciation, Elections and Supply Concerns. So today, with five months of performance under the belt in 2019 what are…
- Opinion
Fox News fake news, Phuket gets a bullet
by Bill Barnett, C9Hotelworks.com As Phuket moves slowly into low season, a story published in the international media by the US-based Fox News about how tourists could face the death penalty over taking photos at the island’s airport is a highly flaw piece of sensationalist fake news. Clearly there is no likelihood that the Thai authorities will apply a legal maximum…
- Business News
Massive 11 hotel project, surf club and waterpark for Kata, Phuket
by Bill Barnett, C9Hotelworks.com Thai developer K.W. Plaza group has unveiled plans for a large-scale mixed-use project called The Beach Plaza on 15 rai, that will have 11 three and four star hotels with a total of 1.490 rooms. The developer is already pitching the unconstructed project to global hotel interests for an imminent sale. The properties will have varying room…
- Koh Samui News
Koh Phangan and Koh Tao try to shake off monthly boom and bust
by Bill Barnett Thailand’s idyllic Koh Phangan island is renowned globally for its marque Full Moon parties. On the heels of soaring demand for the big event, visitor numbers surpassed the one million ceiling two years ago and over a five-year period registered compound annual growth rate of 17%. While the numbers are impressive, the reality for resorts on the…
- Phuket News
Phuket airport numbers soar, despite the sag in the second half of 2018
“India became the fastest growing source market last year with more direct flights in 2019.” by Bill Barnett of C9 Hotelworks In 2018, Phuket tourism experienced volatile trading. While the first half year achieved a record high 4.8 million passenger arrivals, the second half year dropped unexpectedly due to the impact of the boat tragedy in July when 47 Chinese…
- Business News
Top 5 Phuket (and Thailand) hotel trends for 2019
by Bill Barnett Moving through high season in 2019, hoteliers are starting to look for strategies for the rest of the year in order to not be reliant only on volatile mass markets. The following is C9 Hotelworks read on key trends for the year. Pressure On Demand – Good Hotels Perform, Others Left Out Diving into the numbers, the reality is that…
- Business News
Phuket hotels under pressure to perform
by Bill Barnett C9 Hotelworks Despite registering a record high 9 million passenger arrivals at the island’s gateway international airport in 2018, performance data is indicating that a slowdown in its double-digit growth rates over the past few years is on the horizon for Thailand’s resort destination of Phuket. While airport arrivals grew 8% year-on-year, the gains posted were at…
- Business News
Strong baht a concern for Thai hotel sector
by Bill Barnett Thailand’s baht performance against Asian currencies in 2018, was unmatched, with the exception of the Japanese yen. Commenting on the trend financial news Bloomberg have highlighted that in 2019, a further 4% in growth this year have it sitting at the top of the table. Oddly, one of the underlying factors stimulating the baht’s appreciation is the…
- Phuket News
City by the Bay – Laguna Phuket’s urbanisation
by Bill Barnett from c9hotelworks.com If you were going to play a soundtrack to this story, perhaps it could be started off best with the 80’s hit “We Built This City”. If you toured the Laguna Phuket area in the year the song charted in 1985, the area was an eerie lunar landscape of a former tin mining domain. Today the…
- Business News
Sporting events, meetings and Indian weddings spur Phuket tourism in 2018
PHOTO: WeddingSutra.com by Bill Barnett of c9hotelworks.com Phuket’s surging MICE market is now valued at 10.9 billion baht, as meetings, incentives and exhibitions attracted over 800,000 visitors to resort island in the last year. The islands increasingly prolific MICE market nearly doubled in year-on-year growth in 2017. As revenue for the segment skyrocketed from 5.9 billion baht to a record-high 10.9…
- World News
From condoms to condos – Southeast Asia’s sex tourism journey
by Bill Barnett of c9hotelworks.com “One thing I can assure them is that business will never be the same. Never.” This is a story that has all the epic elements of military power, big oil, sleaze, real estate, greed and ultimately transformation. Southeast Asia’s sex tourism journey on a broad scale goes back to the 1960’s and the Vietnam War.…
- Phuket News
Pulp Fiction – Phuket tourism by numbers
by Bill Barnett This week netizens have been captivated over a photo in the blogosphere proclaiming that “Phuket high-season was dead as a dodo.” Excuse me as I digress for just a minute on the subject of dodo’s, which is clearly something I know nothing about, hence putting myself on par with the individual proclaiming the ‘end of days’ for…
- Koh Samui News
Koh Samui balancing on tourism razor’s edge
PHOTO: www.thekalasamui.com “…shrinking Chinese demand due to the economic slowdown and depreciation for the yuan versus the baht” The time has come to open the discussion about the troubling drop in one of Thailand’s leading resort destinations, Koh Samui. Looking into the island’s performance numbers, according to data from international hospitality benchmarking group STR, at the end of August room…
- Property
The future of Bangkok’s Chinatown
by Bill Barnett of c9hotelworks.com (First appeared on linkedin.com) The emergence of boutique hotels, hostels, hip bars and cafes has revolutionised the way Chinatown, Bangkok is seen. This, together with the entry of international branded operators setting the stage for exciting changes. Overview of Chinatown For over 200 years, Yaowarat Road in Bangkok or Chinatown has been a center of Chinese immigrants…
- Business News
Pattaya’s hotel performance rebounds as EEC drives positive market sentiment
Domestic tourism growth outshines Mainland China and Russia source business Thailand’s second largest tourism market, Pattaya has pushed through the glass ceiling from the volatility hangover of the 2014 era, with its hotel sector now showing strong signs of rising stability. According to the latest available data, strong demand from the Thai domestic sector accounted for 38% of hotel guests…
- World News
Budget Phuket to India direct, from October
Indian low-cost airline carrier GoAir will commence direct flights between India and Phuket in October. Flights between Delhi to Phuket start October 11 and from Mumbai on October 12. GoAir is the 5th largest airline in India, with a home base of Mumbai. The city-based airline, which became eligible to fly overseas more than two years ago when it took delivery of its…
- Koh Samui News
Direct flights, luxury hotel brands and wellness push Samui performance
While most of Thailand’s resort markets struggle with an onslaught of mass tourism, Koh Samui has remained a ‘calm in the middle of a gathering storm’ in the numbers driven industry. While low-cost airlines have tapped into Asia’s soaring consumer class in most destinations, creating dizzying growth numbers, the island’s privately-owned airport has allowed for poised and sustained development over…
- Property
From tropical paradise to busy urban island – Phuket
By Bill Barnett Phuket’s tourists, expats and property buyers are finding new reasons to head to the Pearl of the Andaman. They’re now spending more time and money seeking out alternative activities in areas other than the famed west-coast beaches. A report says that the island is transforming into a more well-rounded destination as visitors and new residents takes advantage…
- Phuket News
Global Green Hotel Report – the third annual edition launched
by Bill Barnett of c9hotelworks.com The Green Lodging Trends Report 2018 (the third annual report) has been launched and will remain open until August 10, 2018. To participate, which is free, hotels need to sign up using the link HERE. Given the current influx of tourism to Phuket and all resort markets across Southeast Asia, this is a invaluable tool…
- Phuket News
Comment: Will the Blame Game result in a Chinese Phuket tourism boycott?
by Bill Barnett As the death toll climbs past a reported 40 from the recent sinking of a tourist boat in Phang Nga Bay, social media in Mainland China is creating a hailstorm of negative criticism about Phuket. While there is a general perception in Thailand that the tourism market dodged a bullet, with the Chiang Rai cave story dominating…
- Property
A tale of two cities, Phuket style
By Bill Barnett of c9hotelworks.com The raindrops keep falling on my head. Rainy season always brings with it time to dust off the classics, and strangely enough, straight off my top shelf came Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Life is played out so well in these tattered pages, which are turned a mottled brown on the edges. There…
- News
The evolution of an island – Phuket’s rise and rise
PHOTO: Banyan Tree Phuket “Thailand’s great push forward on mega-transportation projects is seeing strong dividends being paid in its tourism industry. One key example is Phuket, where passenger arrivals grew by nearly 19% in the first four month of the year at the newly upgraded and expanded international airport.” By Bill Barnett Why Phuket? One only has to look at…
- Health
Phuket’s monsoon – here comes the green season
by Bill Barnett of c9hotelworks.com Rainy season often brings a shroud of darkness over the island, when strong showers can even make it difficult seeing anything farther away than the short span across the road from my office. Imagine pulling a hoodie over your head on a sunny day and dropping suddenly into the netherworld of dimly lit shadows. These…
- News
Phuket report shows arrivals up 19% in Q1
By Bill Barnett from c9hotelworks.com Thailand’s great push forward on mega-transportation projects is seeing strong dividends in the local tourism industry. One key example is Phuket, where passenger arrivals grew by nearly 19% in the first four month of the year at the newly upgraded and expanded international airport. Why Phuket? One only has to look at the upward trajectory…
- News
Phuket Airport’s arrival growth soars
By Bill Barnett of c9hotelworks.com. Looking at the numbers alone, the new upgrade and expansion of Phuket International Airport has been a roaring success (although the renovations are ongoing and, especially the domestic terminal, are an unfinished mess right now). January through March, 2018 passenger arrivals at Phuket International Airport surged by 19.3% compared to the same period last year, totalling…
- News
Rayong supercharged by China’s ‘Belt and Road’
FILE PHOTO: U-Tapao Airport Bill Barnett from c9hotelworks.com reports… China’s massive outward bound economic expansion is now experiencing a massive impact on Thailand’s enormous infrastructure initiative, the EEC (Eastern Economic Corridor). A clear example of this is in the country’s Rayong province, which last year hosted 7 million visitors. According to consulting group C9 Hotelworks newly released Rayong Hotel Market…
