Phuket Hoteliers Fear Delayed Recovery

[george]

Hoteliers fear delayed recovery

PHUKET: -- Hotels on this resort island may have been overly optimistic in their earlier estimation that local occupancy rates, which hit a record low of about 10% right after the tsunami, would be able to recover to 40-60% within three months.

Most Phuket hotel operators subscribed to this view in a recent survey conducted by the Tourism Authority of Thailand's southern office on the assumption that the recovery package, including promotional campaigns jointly undertaken by the private and public sector, would work as effectively as planned. But lately, some operators are beginning to have their doubts.

Pamuke Achariyachai, president of Kata Group, a major resort in the Kata beach area, called the government's promotional campaign to bring tourists back to Phuket insufficient.

''The bid to attract 20,000 tourists in the next three months is not strong enough to salvage the battered hospitality and travel industry. A million or so is needed to really have an impact,'' said the hotelier.

He urged the government to earmark 1.5 billion baht to subsidise tour packages, making them more attractive for tourists to come back to Phuket.

''Why can't we do what countries like Singapore and Malaysia are doing in supporting their tourism industry? The [subsidy] money is peanuts when considering the social and economic impact created by laid-off industry employees,'' he said.

Suwalai Pinpradab, director of the TAT's southern region 4 office, said trust and confidence in Phuket along with other vacation destinations along the Andaman Sea coast province affected by the deadly wave was returning, albeit slowly.

Maitree Narukatpichai, president of the Kata Karon Hotel Business Association, the province's leading trade group, made up of 32 hotels with 4,600 rooms, said that the industry had begun to see signs of recovery this month.

Mrs Suwalai noted that charter flights carrying tourists, which largely dissappeared from Phuket's radar in the aftermath of the tsunami, have started to resume flights to the island.

Over the past few days, charter flights from Sweden _ the first since Dec 26 _ and Hong Kong have arrived. Charters from South Korea, Norway, Germany and China are scheduled to come later this month.

However, Mrs Suwalai noted that several airlines had yet to resume scheduled flights, while others hadn't increased frequencies cut heavily after the disaster.

Sombat Atiset, chief executive of Katathani hotel group, reckoned that Phuket hotels should be able to achieve an average occupany rate of 40% in the period covering November 2004 to October 2005, down from 70% in the same period of the previous year.

The tsunami has effectively wiped out the peak season for hotels in the six coastal provinces, with losses estimated at 60 billion baht, of which 32 billion represented lost income in Phuket alone.

In January, the overall occupany rate for hotels belonging to the Kata Karon Hotel Business Association was below 10%.

--The Post 2005-02-03

[phuketrichard]

20,000 tourists in the next three months. What a joke :-).

In the high season Fanatsea alone drew 3,000 people/night!

There are 37,000 rooms in phuket, 27,000 of those are ready for people. Out of those maybe 2,000 have people in them.

The beach in patong already has umbrellas and chairs the whole length of the beach and in some places 2 deep (contrary to what the PLAN was)

yet I fugure yesterday at 2 pm maybe 200 occupied.

Its still a ghost town here.

[darrengale]

20,000 tourists in the next three months. What a joke :-).

In the high season Fanatsea alone drew 3,000 people/night!

There are 37,000 rooms in phuket, 27,000 of those are ready for people.  Out of those maybe 2,000 have people in them.

The beach in patong already has umbrellas and chairs the whole length of the beach and in some places 2 deep (contrary to what the PLAN was)

yet I fugure yesterday at 2 pm maybe 200 occupied.

Its still a ghost town here.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Very sad, bangla rd must be very quiet to ?, I left there 12th jan and saw massive improvement from the boxing day disaster and from what I could see apart from the beach rd and a few adjoining short areas everything was operating ok.Have they started work on the beach wall/prom in patong ? that had been badly damaged considering it had only been laid in the last 18 months.

I hope for everyone who lives there they get it buzzing again and back to how it was soon.

[phuketrichard]

NOPE. haven't started anything yet, NO MONEY!!! The mayor has asked Thaksin to look into why there has been over 6,000,000,000 placed with the bank yet no one can get any money or loans.

The hogh season is in full swing now with 10-20% occupancy

IN kamala they have started tearing down the small beach restaurnts and shops in front of the police station. BUT in patong no work has been done by the goverment at all in over 3 weeks. Some places are re-building and there are a few restaurnats open on the beach road but....

Its going to be a long year

[domusbkk]

The situation here in bangkok is not comparable at all, of course, with the one in Phuket. But it 's getting hit as well far more deeply than what gouvernment agencies would let think.

From what I know, JJ market is getting more quiet every week since beginning of january to reach now a minus 70 to 80% on retail turn over for many tourist orientated business from previous and comparable basis. Even international wholesale getting hit as many small buyers were completing their trip to the beach as well. Thai wholesale is disaster as well of course as everyone is linked. And thai retail getting hit by subway problems, temporarly only but still.

Those figures cannot be taken for all of course and only the reflect of shops and areas I know quite well. But get sure than if the big ones will survive, many smaller which don 't have the cash flow for it, simply won 't make it until next season if it 's going on like that. Even if business are running better than phuket for sure, this drop in tourist arrival make often the difference between benefits and deficits as for many , since jan, turn over doesn 't cover costs at all. When u think that last weeks officials have decided it was time to check than evryone pay the taxes in JJ at it should be....thx for the government support!

Khao san look still busy, but getting much quieter as well, many tourists there were in in transit from neighbours countries and just get the feeling there is no new arrivals, not enough for every one. Some place look more empty than in low season. It 's the case since only few weeks but give me a very bad feeling about the all season.

Same feeling for Patpong market, doesn 't look busy at all those days.

Many tourists left seems to be the one coming very regularly on a long term. Just don't really see the ones which are coming for 2 weeks on holiday.

Would like to know how it s going on in other areas, Chiang Mai, Samui and hotels here in bkk??

Anyway, the drop of arrival of 9% that the government seems to annouce for the year is a big joke, a face thing again, which help no one else than them.

As long as main travel agencies abroad don 't put Asia at all on their boards and offers, and not promoting this destination to their costumers, the situation won 't get better.

Asia is still on their catalogue, but you really have to look for it, and Phuket is not there, replace by Samui or Pattaya (??which have been rename "Jomtiem", to not afraid people??best thing to do if you don 't want people to come back again, nothing against Pattaya but not everyone is coming for this so better be frank) . I don 't believe any agents behind his desk in my country will suggest Asia at that time, they push people to USA, Caraib, South and central America, Africa...They will think their costumer have to be happy, not stress by any situations which can kill their mood... secure their business as everyone will do. They have compassion on TV, much less when it come to secure business i guess.

Well, government should speak less and WORK more, forget their face for a little while and start helping small people here and there, let's face it, the year gonna be very hard whatever TAT will say or do.The problem is simply bigger than this. Farang don 't fear the ghosts but their own conscience, having seen hundreds of dead children on TV on Christmas, there is little chance than they even think of coming here 2 or 3 months after. Only time will make it now, most of the people there doesn 't really know where Samui is or even exist and the dammage cause by misinformation from foreign TVs is enormous.

Just to say than wherever business are in Thailand we are all far more linked than we thought and as in Phuket, small ones will get hit when some of the bigs will take over this situation to expand their monkey business. Making them more arrogant and greedy than ever...

And giving oportunity to tourists to think than the sun can be brighter and nicer somewhere else... This happen more often than we think, so let's hope it can be the big occasion for this governemnt to clean. But as they start to say than getting rid of masseuses to not disturb tourists will help confidence and they took out half of the stands in Patpong footpath ( don 't worry DVD are still available in government markets threw BKK more than ever!), They probably understood than cleaning the mess means getting rid off the competition and smaller ones....Thailand will go far like that...keep going!

[phuketrichard]

Thanks for the update on Bangkok. I would imagine that it is bad up there.

Thailand in general will suffer long term. Think of all those that took loans in Oct-nov in anticapotion of the coming high season? Now they need to payback but there is no cash to pay them back.

Chinese new years starts this week, yet they are saying that the chinese could be carrying bird flu and still no direct flights into Phuket form Hk/China/Taiwan/Japan ;-(

Alhought the beach in patong is lined with chairs its only at the mid-northern end that there are toursits. My friend owns a restaurnmat that was totaled next to the Cabana hotel and he is doing very well with limited tables.

Its going to be a long low season.

Boat accident in Samui, unsafe subways, people dying daily in the south. One would think Thailand is cursed