For the island’s two MPs, Anchalee Vanich-Thepabutr and Rewat Areerob – both Democrats and therefore on the opposite side of Parliament from the government – the cancellation comes as a bitter blow, another example of the one-sidedness of the Bangkok-Phuket relationship.
“Phuket contributes a huge amount of revenue to the country – many hundreds of billions of baht a year,” Mr Rewat fumed. Yet its infrastructure lags way behind its needs.
And, he told The Phuket News, “The convention centre, which would hold 2,000 to 3,000 people, would not be just for Phuket, either. It would also benefit [neighbouring] provinces such as Phang Nga and Krabi.”
“One of the most important reasons [we need the ICEC] is the looming Asean Economic Community in 2015 when tourists will pour into our country, with many of them heading for the southern provinces.”
Mr Rewat said governments in the past had backed exhibition centres in the north, in Chiang Mai (under a Democrat government) and the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center in Bangkok (under the military rule of Gen Prem Tinsulanonda).
Yet there is still no facility anywhere in southern Thailand to handle large groups of meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (Mice) visitors, generally reckoned to spend far more money per person than ordinary tourists.
Mr Rewat said Mrs Anchalee would complain to the Senate Tourism Committee and invite Deputy PM and Finance Minister Kittirat Na-Ranongto explain why approval for the Phuket ICEC had been cancelled.
He said he would also deliver a letter to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra explaining the importance of the ICEC and asking her, too, to explain why the Cabinet had dumped it.
Sarayuth Mallam, Vice-President of the Phuket Tourism Association (PTA), said he firmly believed the decision was politically motivated. “The project was approved by the government of [Democrat leader] Abhisit [Vejjajiva]. It was a political decision to cancel it.”
He, too, will be writing to the PM stating the PTA’s view that the cancellation will definitely have an effect on Phuket, and may set the island’s tourism industry back “several steps”. The government, he believes, does not care about the well being of Phuket; only about scoring political points.
Mr Sarayuth also voiced his suspicion that a secondary reason for the cancellation was that the government was “broke” and had therefore decided to cut big-ticket projects such as the ICEC, expected to cost as much as B2.6 billion.
“I will pass our complaint to the PM. We [the Phuket Tourist Association] are business people,” he grumbled. “Whoever sits in the Cabinet must take a broad view of Phuket tourism, not just use it for political grandstanding.”