Australia road show “a big success’

PHUKET TOWN: The Phuket Road Show in Australia earlier this month was a great success, Panu Massirat, a member of the Phuket Tourism Association and organizer of the road show, said today. “As soon as I got back to Phuket, I got more than 10 phone calls from tour agencies in Australia asking me about tourism in Phuket, and the attractions of Phuket and other provinces,” K. Panu said today. “We got really good feedback from tour agents and other people in Australia.” The road show, which ran from December 3 to 10, was led by Governor CEO Pongpayome Vasaputi, and covered Sydney and Melbourne. It attracted almost 200 Australian tour agencies for presentations about Phuket and the nearby provinces of Phang Nga, Krabi, and Chumphon, as well as Koh Samui. As a result, the number of tourists visiting these provinces from Australia and New Zealand is expected to rise from 130,000 this year to more than 200,000 in 2002. The PTA is now planning to organize a similar road show to tour Malaysia.