Mr Wichit was speaking at a packed American Chamber of Commerce meeting at his resort, attended by around 120 people, including top developers, hoteliers and tourism figures.
He laid out a history of the island’s tourism industry, much of it a long struggle against government neglect, a battle by local business people to get basic infrastructure such as power, water, communications and flights.
Now, he said, there are real concerns about continuing government neglect, though of a different kind. “The government talks only about numbers of tourists and how much they spend. This worries us a lot. It makes sustainable and quality tourism impossible.
“What will be our future? The government has a policy to support tourism, but no action.”
Unlike in other countries – where governments impose rules and regulations and the private sector have to plead for relaxation of them – in Thailand, Mr Wichit said, “When negative impacts are felt, and [there is] deterioration, it has always been the private sector who drew the government’s attention to the problems.”
“Taking a lesson from 34 years ago, when a group of operators like us were the stakeholders [and pushed the government to respond], now we have more stakeholders – people who come here to invest in property, services, retail and many others – so maybe it is time for those stakeholders to voice [their concerns] insistently to the government, like we did at the beginning.”
Asked afterwards by The Phuket News whether he planned to lead the new push, perhaps to call a meeting of like-minded people, he said, “I have no specific approach for the time being. I’m just trying to motivate them to do something together. I’m tiring – we can give the younger generation some ideas and some direction.”
Questioned how long he thought it would be before Phuket’s tourism becomes definitively unsustainable, he said, “I don’t know. It depends. There are two factors that were involved in the past take-off of tourism. One was consistent effort and the other was luck. So I can’t say how much effect luck will have.”
For example, he said, modern-thinking and forward-looking politicians and senior ministry staff could make a big positive difference, while if they were conservative, nothing would get done. Which type one would get at any time was a matter of luck.
He also admitted that constant changes in government and ministerial posts these days is leading to a worrying lack of consistency.
“I have heard from many colleagues that [Tourism and Sport Minister Somsak Pureesrisak] is very active. But I don’t know how long he will stay. You never know.”