On Tuesday (November 6) Phuket Governor Maitree Intusut, Cherng Talay OrBorTor officials, the Director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) Phuket Office Chanchai Doungjit and hotel representatives met with party organisers Sydictive Element.
As reported in last week’s Phuket News, the meeting follows concerns from Surin hotel representatives regarding the date and venue of the festive bash – they want the event to be moved to a different date and a different beach because they fear it will upset their customers and make them lose business.
They, along with local food and drink vendors, have expressed concern about a lack of detailed plans for the event, and while many ideas have been discussed, they have yet to see anything formal.
Gov Maitree and Mr Chanchai have already given their blessing to the event.
During the meeting, Phuriphat Kulpisut, Director of the 5th Marine Department said that the floating stage required permission from the Marine Department, but he had yet to see any application for this.
Supacheep Wanchai, a representative from Sydictive Element, said the event would not be non-stop over two days as many had previously thought, and that noise levels would be restricted to 100 decibels.
“We will have 2,000 security guards along the beach, and will have a plan that is up to international standards to clean up the beach and organise and control the amenities.”
Somjai Tungkoo, Twinpalms Group Executive Manager, said that several bookings had already been cancelled since the announcement of the event, resulting in a loss of about B1 million for the hotel.
Sydictive Element earlier said they planned on buying room nights at hotels to make up for the loss of any business, but no formal agreement has been made regarding this.
After the first meeting, Sydictive representatives met again in the afternoon with hotel representatives – this time also including local food and drink vendors, who Sydictive say they want to involve in the catering.
“We think the concert is a good opportunity for us but we need to talk more. The plans are not clear to us – we want [Sydictive] to make it clear,” one restaurant owner said.
There was vague discussion about setting up a food court type area, something local vendors were not happy with, wanting instead to keep their own restaurants open as they did every year.
Mr Supacheep responded that local food vendors would have “huge benefit” from this event. “We would be delighted if merchants wanted to sell in the area – we are going to prepare a booth area and T-shirts for them.”
Gov Maitree gave Sydictive Element two or three days to return again with more detailed plans for the event that address local concerns.