Nanthasiri Ronnasiri, Director of the TAT’s Phuket Office, said on Tuesday (June 28) that hotel rooms in Phuket used to be 75% booked before the pandemic. But the hotel reservation rate declined to 19.47% in 2020 and 7.75% in 2021, reports the Bangkok Post.
As Phuket’s economy is highly dependent on the tourism industry, the government has stepped up measures to help spur demand, she said.
Since the launch of the Rao Tiew Duay Kan (We Travel Together) tourism stimulus campaign, the proportion of domestic tourists rose to 80% of the total last year, the same level as foreign tourists prior to the pandemic in 2019, according to Ms Nanthasiri.
Furthermore, she said more than 200,000 foreign tourists had visited Phuket with the launch of the Sandbox scheme from July to December last year.
From the beginning of this year to May 31, around 1.73mn tourists visited the island, of those 132,472 were domestic travellers, Ms Nanthasiri added*.
The island has earned B26.5bn from tourist spending, of which B14.4bn came from Thais, indicating an increase in the number of domestic tourists lately, she said.
As a tourism-reliant economy, Phuket has recovered faster than other provinces, with the hotel reservation rate for the first five months of the year standing at 28.27% on average, Ms Nanthasiri said.
Phuket is the most popular province for tourists in the South, according to Ms Nanthasiri.
Somsuk Samphanprateep, deputy chief of the Phuket Provincial Public Health Office, said the COVID-19 situation on the island has improved as new daily infections now stand at an average of 15. (Latest report indicates 23 per day, see here.)
Despite the easing of the face mask mandate, masks are still required for the high-risk “608” group, and in crowded areas. The group comprises people aged 60 and older, those with underlying conditions and pregnant women.
* According to the Phuket Immigration Daily report issued yesterday, from July 1, 2021 - June 28, 2022 Phuket welcomed 693,705 international arrivals. Of those, Phuket welcomed 189,431 international arrivals from May 1 to June 28 this year. (See report here.)