"C9 Hotelworks" revealed the research data of Phuket's tourism economy. The hotel business achieved great success in the first half of 2023, with an occupancy rate of 70%, paving the way for the continued recovery in the next stage. However, it is worrisome that most of the infrastructure has not yet been completed, the traffic is congested, and the hotel is also short of staff. While private enterprises launched new hotel brands, the old ones were adjusted on a large scale to respond to the market recovery.
In the middle of last year, the number of international and domestic flights increased by 75% compared with the same period in 2022. Russia and China are the two largest tourist departure markets in the first six months of 2022, followed by India, Australia and Kazakhstan. In the first half of 2023, the hotel occupancy rate will exceed 70%. What really benefits hotel owners is the trend of rising house prices after the epidemic crisis. Although most of the more than 2000 hotels registered in Phuket and more than 106000 rooms have returned to normal, hotel operators still face the problem of shortage of service workers.
The result of the recovery of the tourism industry is that the number of tourists is growing rapidly, the demand of the real estate market is too strong, and the return of development projects makes traffic congestion a very worrying problem, which will affect and become a long-term problem of sustained growth.
Bill Barnett, executive director of C9 Hotelworks, said that the peak season of 2023/2024 may cause serious traffic congestion, which will have a serious impact on tourists and residents. Failure to put transportation infrastructure projects into practice in the past 10 years will have a long-term impact. Important projects that have not been completed include the Badong Katu Tunnel, the inter island expressway and the light rail system. Although the current government attaches great importance to these projects, it is impossible to allocate government budgets at present. Therefore, these projects need public-private joint ventures or BOT (construction operation transfer) to continue, including Andaman International Airport, which is also in great demand.
By forecasting the upcoming peak season, tourism economic research data found that hotels and tourism enterprises are very worried about the slow return. Thailand's image in China's big market has been damaged. Despite the visa free policy, tourists' confidence in traveling to Thailand is still weak. As the recovery of China's tourism market has not yet been realized, most hotels need strong purchasing power from Russia, Kazakhstan and India, as well as "Snow Bird" tourists in winter.
Although the basic elements of Phuket Hotel have been prepared, tourism solutions that try to plug government loopholes will not work in such mature international tourism areas as Phuket. In the past 20 years, the private sector of Phuket has been unable to meet the needs of its backward government level infrastructure. What is needed is to accelerate the overall planning and strategies for the development of degraded infrastructure.
In the first half of 2023, Phuket International Airport will have about 3.4 million inbound passengers, including about 1.6 million Thai passengers; In 2022, the annual passenger volume of Phuket will be about 3.9 million, and that of Thailand will be about 2.3 million; In 2021, the number of tourists to Phuket will be about 900000, including more than 700000 Thais.
Although the advance booking rate during the peak season is very good, we believe that the number of tourists is unlikely to be the same as before the outbreak of COVID-19, but it is expected to be no less than 80%. According to the tourist data of Thailand Tourism Administration (TAT), Phuket's hotel industry is very active at present, and the tourism situation has improved greatly since then. It is expected that everything will return to normal next year as before the COVID-19 epidemic.
It is reported that Phuket was the government with the highest tourism revenue in Thailand before the COVID-19 epidemic, creating more than 470 billion baht of revenue.
The previous report of "C9 Hotelworks" pointed out that new hotels in Phuket will continue to emerge in the future. For example, it is expected that 8 new hotels will be opened in 2024, with a total number of rooms exceeding 1820; By 2025, there will be about 3 new hotels opening, with a total number of rooms exceeding 699; By 2026, there will be about 4 new hotels opening, with a total number of more than 680 rooms.
