During the New Year holiday, Phuket welcomes more than 250,000 visitors. (Photo: AFP/VNA)Bangkok (VNA) – The Tourism Authority of Thailand(TAT)'s Phuket office will continue promoting the province as a year-rounddestination with no official low season, according to director of the officeLertchai Wangtrakuldee.
The strategy follows the success seen in 2023 when the resortprovince in southern Thailand met its arrival and revenue targets before theyear concluded.
By the end of November, the province had attracted more than 10million tourists and got 330 billion baht (over 9.5 billionUSD) from them.
Lertchai said that his office will continue the strategy tomake the province free of a 'low season' which usually falls from May toSeptember.
He said the province is targeting tourists from Taiwan(China), Hong Kong (China), Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam during the typicallow season while trying to maintain those from Russia and Kazakhstan.
He said Phuket will keep the market diverse without relyingon a single country to avoid any repercussions.
His office also plans to send long-stay tourists to nearbyprovinces like Phangnga and Krabi.
He said community tourism will be promoted among those whoarrive on cruise ships, students who come to Phuket for a short language course, as well as Chinese tourists who tend to travel solo or in small groups.
During the New Year holiday, Phuket welcomed more than250,000 visitors and got over 8 billion baht, he said.
About 70% of the visitors were foreigners arriving on directflights. The biggest group of tourists, numbering 4,000-5,000 per day, came fromRussia, followed by China, India, Australia and the UK.
The occupancy rate averaged 82%, with some hotel operatorsreporting a three-fold increase in revenue compared with the pre-COVID level in 2019./.
