Raja Ferry looking at Andaman Sea route
By SASITHORN ONGDEE
THE NATION 

 

        Apichart      

 

BANGKOK: -- RAJA FERRY PORT PLC, a leading ferry and boat service provider in the lower Gulf of Thailand, plans to expand to the Andaman Sea and connect its operation to the Pacific and Indian oceans.

 

This expansion is part of the company’s investment plan until 2020, said managing director Apichart Chayopas. 

 

Raja Ferry Port mainly carries passengers between mainland Surat Thani and Koh Samui and Koh Pha Ngan.

 

“We want to link two oceans – the Pacific [to the East] and the Indian [to the West],” Apichart said.

 

Full story: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/business/corporate/30307324

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-02-27

Quote

He [Raja managing director Apichart Chayopas.] said about 90 per cent of chattered flights from China arriving at Surat Thani Airport opted to travel by Raja Ferry to Koh Samui. 

“We now enjoy around 2,000 Chinese passengers flying in on chartered flights from China a day, doubling from earlier.The key success factor is that we can deliver our customers to the door of their destinations even if the flight is delay,” he said.

That's a lot of Chinese charter tourist arriving to Samui in a year via Surat Thani Airport – i.e. 2,000 x 360 equals 720,000 – do more than half million Chinese tourists really come to the island that way during a year..?

Moving a ferry service out of the fairly well protected  bight & into the open sea is a huge challenge.

They will need to purchase sea going vessels with a lot more integrity than they are presently using

Access to the Andaman sea  from surat thani is best done by road atm. Long sea route even for freight. not sure what this story is about.

7 hours ago, optad said:

Access to the Andaman sea  from surat thani is best done by road atm. Long sea route even for freight. not sure what this story is about.

Although not clear in the article the plan would be to have ferries on both coasts (Andaman and Gulf of Thailand) and connect them using buses and minivans.

1 hour ago, mikebike said:

Although not clear in the article the plan would be to have ferries on both coasts (Andaman and Gulf of Thailand) and connect them using buses and minivans.

Makes better sense.