Phuket recorded a 52.5% year-on-year increase in Israeli visitors in July, with arrivals from Israel also up 1,205% on pre-Covid July 2019 levels, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand's Phuket office.

The figures were presented at a provincial meeting on August 27, chaired by Phuket Governor Chotinarin Kirdsom. While total visitor numbers were slightly lower over the first seven months of 2026, tourism income remained comparatively steady.

Israeli market leads July growth

Israel was the fastest-growing market among Phuket's 10 leading visitor source countries in July, rising by more than 12 times compared with the same month in 2019.

Russia remained Phuket's largest overseas market between January and July, supplying 619,130 visitors. China was second with 383,918, followed by India on 354,066, Australia on 149,542 and the United Kingdom on 131,344.

The rest of the top 10 consisted of Germany with 106,902 visitors, France with 103,752, Malaysia with 87,854, Kazakhstan with 81,673 and South Korea with 79,960.

China was Phuket's leading single market in July itself, recording 58,634 visitors. That was a 19% increase on July last year, although still 63% below the July 2019 figure.

Visitor total slips but spending holds up

From January to July, Phuket welcomed 8,096,059 visitors, a 1.53% fall from the same period last year. Hotel occupancy averaged 75.56%, down 1.74%.

Despite the lower visitor total, the province generated about 310,961.57 million baht in tourism revenue during the seven-month period, a decline of only 0.72% year-on-year. The TAT attributed the resilience in revenue to a steady flow of high-spending tourists.

New direct services due this year

Kuwait Airways is scheduled to start a Kuwait-Phuket service on October 27, operating twice a week. MIAT Mongolian Airlines will also operate flights between Ulaanbaatar and Phuket three times weekly from December 2026 until March 2027.

The new Middle East and East Asian connections are expected to support Phuket tourism during the second half of 2026 by opening additional markets and giving travellers more direct options to reach the province.

Picture courtesy of Manager Online

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29 August 2026

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Well the Israelis must see Thailand as a welcoming place. Hard to share that view reading domestic social media comments!

2 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

Well the Israelis must see Thailand as a welcoming place. Hard to share that view reading domestic social media comments!

Are those tge ones you can read? Because anything with English is obviously motivated by western politics now, in everything

1 minute ago, harvardgrad said:

Are those tge ones you can read? Because anything with English is obviously motivated by western politics now, in everything

Yes, pretty much. But many seen here, for example, are referring back to Thai language comments.

2 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

Yes, pretty much. But many seen here, for example, are referring back to Thai language comments.

Wondering you are looking for it or if its just more prevalent as the new xenophobic flavor of the day. Before it was Russians andChinese, and then guess what, Russians and Chinese are tired of the place. Russians can't go back home though so phukey continues to decline rapidly. And now yeah, Israelis too. Not like any of us were interested in going there anyways

Interesting. There was some sort of peaceful demonstration against Israeli in Patong last night. (BTW, I'm not saying I'm for or against. I'm just stating facts printed in a newspaper)

https://www.thephuketnews.com/phuket-islamic-leader-backs-protest-blames-israeli-for-damage-to-phuket-101450.php

We got bored with talking badly about the Indians, Russians, and Chinese...

Now it's the Israelis' turn to be run through the wringer...

19 minutes ago, LivingNThailand said:

Interesting. There was some sort of peaceful demonstration against Israeli in Patong last night. (BTW, I'm not saying I'm for or against. I'm just stating facts printed in a newspaper)

https://www.thephuketnews.com/phuket-islamic-leader-backs-protest-blames-israeli-for-damage-to-phuket-101450.php

Interesting indeed. There is a vast difference between the report on the demonstration in The Straits Times, a leading Singapore newspaper, and the Phuket News. The Straits Times article says it was a demonstration against bad behavior by tourists in general, while the Phuket News quotes an Islamic leader who said the demonstration was specifically against Israeli and Jewish tourists.

Only about 200 people attended, so it was no big thing.

Thai patience wears thin as backlash against ‘bad’ tourists grows

BANGKOK - Frustrated by what they see as a spate of incidents involving disrespectful behaviour by foreign visitors, Phuket residents gathered at Patong beach on Aug 28 to call for greater respect for Thai laws and culture.

The “Save Phuket” event, attended by an estimated 200 people, took place as Thailand introduced tougher measures allowing the authorities to revoke the visas of foreigners who cause public disturbances, remove them from the country and potentially bar them from returning.

A visible backlash against foreigners is emerging in Thailand – from a Phuket beach gathering to vigilante groups – as the government steps up efforts to crack down on foreigners who flout the law, raising questions about where legitimate enforcement ends and hostility towards foreigners begins.

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/thai-patience-wears-thin-as-backlash-against-bad-tourists-grows?ref=top-stories

@Evil Penevil

Those signs say "jewish" if you look closely.

The Straits Times - or someone - has been having some fun with a red marker.

53 minutes ago, Evil Penevil said:

Interesting indeed. There is a vast difference between the report on the demonstration in The Straits Times, a leading Singapore newspaper, and the Phuket News

Interesting the different views on the same subject. That's why I try not to believe just about anything that is written by one paper or the other. I try to be objective as much as possible.

Another paper mentioned Israeli and French tourists. And also said organizers asked people not to bring Palestine flags to the event. It's a heated subject in Phuket with the Thais not too happy with any of the bad behaving tourists, and there are quite a few, especially in Patong.

27 minutes ago, JingerBen said:

The Straits Times - or someone - has been having some fun with a red marker.

That's also interesting. I just saw the original photo on a FB page, It definitely says Jewish. Should say Israeli. Jewish is a religion practiced all over the world. Israel is a country, like France. Not the same thing at all. If we are going to be racists let's do it right! (That was a joke )

Edited August 29Aug 29 by LivingNThailand

18 minutes ago, JingerBen said:

@Evil Penevil

Those signs say "jewish" if you look closely.

The Straits Times - or someone - has been having some fun with a red marker.

Thank you for pointing that out. The signs do in fact say "Jewish."

That's really bad. If the signs said "Israeli," the demonstrators could claim they were protesting the bad behavior of a national group. But to use "Jewish" on the signs points to raw hatred of all Jews.

That said, it does seem to be a group of Muslims and Muslims hating Jews is nothing new, in Thailand or anywhere else.

Edited August 29Aug 29 by Evil Penevil

It hasn't been the same there post Covid. I'm not going back. Plenty of other places left to enjoy

This YouTuber in Phuket made a video about this today and has some footage. I don't think you can look at this with your Western WWII narratives and understand how the Thais see the situation, which appears for some at least to be a creeping Jewish colonial project like Israel was.

22 minutes ago, LivingNThailand said:

Jewish is a religion practiced all over the world. Israel is a country, like France

Israel is a Jewish colony which came from Europe so it's not totally off base to see those same people now coming to Thailand as a similar event. I don't think they have any way to breach Thailand like they did in Israel though so it's mostly hyperbole from particularly irate people.

2 hours ago, LivingNThailand said:

That's also interesting. I just saw the original photo on a FB page, It definitely says Jewish. Should say Israeli. Jewish is a religion practiced all over the world. Israel is a country, like France. Not the same thing at all. If we are going to be racists let's do it right! (That was a joke )

If talking about "the frogs" you mean French. If you talk about 'Jews" you mean Israelis.

At least I do

"Phuket - The West Bank of South East Asia." 😂 😂

2 hours ago, NorthernRyland said:

That was a decent video. He had some insightful comments. I agree with him that seeing "Jewish" on the signs raised images of 1930's Germany. "Bad behavior by Jews" is straight out of the pages of Hitler's Mein Kampf.

Sabean also said, "It was a rally of hate. There was no positivity." It sure looked that way to me. However, it's going to take more than a couple of hundred Muslims chanting at a rally to discourage Israelis from visiting Phuket.

33 minutes ago, newbee2022 said:

If talking about "the frogs" you mean French. If you talk about 'Jews" you mean Israelis.

At least I do

The world has 16 million Jews and only 7.2 million live in Israel. If to you "Jews" means Israelis, how do you refer to the 6.1 million Jews in the U.S. and the 2.7 million Jews in the rest of the world? Are they Israelis too?

I don't think it was an anti-Jewish rally. It was an anti-Israeli rally, especially against those Israelis (and other nationalities) who don't respect Thai culture. Like many (see previous posts), I associate 'Jewish' with Israel, even though that is incorrect. I'm British, so the number of Jewish people in the UK is small. I guess if you're from the USA, then you're more aware that 'Jewish' doesn't mean Israeli.

That aversion against farang is rising it's a fact. Probably because misbehaviour by them is also increasing.

Against people from Israel could be because of the mass killing going on in Gaza, because of the arrogant behaviour of many of them.

3 years serving in the army can be a very powerful brainwashing that condition the rest of your life.

Years ago I meat couple of boys travelling alone, and they where very nice guys, dissociating themselves from their governments policy.

The brainwashing didn't work on them.

Phuket is a no go zone anyway.................🤫

24 minutes ago, newbee2022 said:

You're right.

The evil is unfortunately not limited to the State of Israel

Are you saying all 16 million of the world's Jews are evil? Were they born evil or did they become evil? Does that include Mrs. Cohen, my 83-year-old Jewish neighbor and Naomi, her nine-week-old great granddaughter?

11 minutes ago, 241195_1469957797 said:

Phuket is a no go zone anyway.................🤫

For whom???

Sounds good. All the rotten eggs in one basket. Holidaying on the theory of security in numbers. This is much better than having all these undesireables wandering around the rest of Thailand.

48 minutes ago, Evil Penevil said:

The world has 16 million Jews and only 7.2 million live in Israel. If to you "Jews" means Israelis, how do you refer to the 6.1 million Jews in the U.S. and the 2.7 million Jews in the rest of the world? Are they Israelis too?

How do the Jews not living in Israel consider themselves?

8 minutes ago, animalmagic said:

How do the Jews not living in Israel consider themselves?

As American Jews, British Jews, Australian Jews, German Jews, etc, They consider themselves citizens of their countries who follow the Jewish religion or are ethnically Jewish.

8 hours ago, Georgealbert said:

Israeli market leads July growth

Israel was the fastest-growing market among Phuket's 10 leading visitor source countries in July, rising by more than 12 times compared with the same month in 2019.

Something is seriously going on - and it's a lot more than just two weeks on the beach..

8 minutes ago, Evil Penevil said:

As American Jews, British Jews, Australian Jews, German Jews, etc, They consider themselves citizens of their countries who follow the Jewish religion or are ethnically Jewish.

So, will we see everyone else identifying themselves as, for example, American Mormons, British Protestants, Australian Buddhists or German Catholics?

7 hours ago, harvardgrad said:

Wondering you are looking for it or if its just more prevalent as the new xenophobic flavor of the day. Before it was Russians andChinese, and then guess what, Russians and Chinese are tired of the place. Russians can't go back home though so phukey continues to decline rapidly. And now yeah, Israelis too. Not like any of us were interested in going there anyways

Puke-et was a lovely place 20 years ago, sadly a mess now

Let’s not forget Israeli money built your country Phuket

Let’s not forget Phuket is Israeli territory

(Satire)