Hotel occupancy rates rise 15pc

PHUKET: Hotel occupancy rates on the island for July are expected to be up 15% when compared with June, thanks mainly to Tourism Authority of Thailand marketing, Pattanapong Aikwanich, President of the Phuket Tourist Association, predicted today.

“There have been many Thai groups who bought the ‘Beach basking, bargain shopping’ packages, as well as tourists from Australia, the Middle East, Hong Kong, India and [South] Korea,” K. Pattanapong said at a meeting today at Provincial Hall.

He added, “True, there are fewer tourists arriving from Germany, Scandinavia and Japan but, [from] the middle of July, Chinese and Taiwanese travelers are expected to come.

“If the tourism situation begins to recover to normal levels, there will be an increase in flights to Phuket.” To add weight to K. Pattanapong’s statement, many hotels have reported an increase in bookings for August.

K. Pattanapong continued, “Although the current situation in Phuket is better than when compared with the beginning of the year, we need to continue building tourists’ confidence [so that they] come here in the high season. I believe we can say that the situation in Phuket will get better.”

However, Juthamas Siriwan, Governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, has a rather bleaker view of the situation. In an interview with Bloomberg News published today, she said that Thailand may lose as much as 50 billion baht in tourism revenue as a result of the tsunami.

“At first I thought we would lose 33 billion baht for the whole year, but now I think it may be estimated at more than that,” Bloomberg quoted her as saying. “It’s around 45 to 50 billion baht in lost tourism revenue.”

For the full Bloomberg story click here.