Having passed through one third of the month of November, Phuket International Airport has registered 75,237 passengers from abroad during Nov 1-10, according to the Phuket office of the Immigration Bureau. The numbers were released earlier today (Nov 11) by Phuket Info Center, operated under the Phuket Governor’s Office.
The average daily arrivals for Nov 1-10 stood at 7,523 passengers with the maximum of 8,096 registered on Nov 5.
To put it into perspective, the average daily numbers for October stood at only 5,448 passengers. The total for the month of October was 166,449 people.
The top-10 source markets for Phuket tourism for Nov 1-10 are:
- Russia – 18,370 arrivals;
- India – 8,939;
- Australia – 5,275;
- UK – 4,511;
- Germany – 4,152;
- Kazakhstan – 3,461;
- Singapore – 3,262;
- Malaysia – 2,817;
- USA – 2,333;
- South Korea – 1,897.
Further below, resting on lines 11-20, are such foreign countries and territories as France, Sweden, Israel, Poland, South Africa, Switzerland, Denmark, Hong Kong, Oman, and Italy.
Thus European countries (without Russia) occupy eight slots in the top-20 ranking for Nov 1-10.
The current top-10 is different from both the ranking for October and the six months from May through October.
The top-10 source markets for Phuket tourism in October were:
- India – 26,200;
- Russia – 23,098;
- Australia – 15,616;
- UK – 10,487;
- Malaysia – 9,758;
- Singapore – 8,650;
- Germany – 8,535;
- South Korea – 7,030;
- Kazakhstan – 4,847;
- France – 4,053.
Daily arrivals from Russia started showing remarkable growth from late September. The aforementioned 23,098 arrivals registered in October represent a significant increase from the monthly average of 3,443 in May-September.
Though not as popular among Russians as Kazakhstan or Georgia, the Kingdom of Thailand in October was still in high demand for Russian travelers going near and far.
Tourism from the Russian Federation got further support in late October when Aeroflot and IKAR relaunched their direct flights from Moscow to Phuket.
With two daily flights by Aeroflot and three flights per week by IKAR, arrivals by Russian nationals reached 12,794 during the seven days from Nov 1 through Nov 7. This is more than half of October arrivals and three times the monthly average for May-Sept in one week.
The Phuket Consulate-General of the Russian Federation welcomed the revival in the Russian tourism market.
“Due to the resumption of regular flights to Phuket by Russian airlines, the number of arriving tourists from Russia has increased significantly,” the Consulate-General said in a publication on social media on Nov 2.
Russian arrivals for the six month from May to October totaled 40,315 people. Only India (151,461 arrivals), Australia (71,839), Singapore (57,498), Malaysia (44,627) and UK (42,948) provided more travelers to Phuket.