THAILAND TRAVEL NEWS: For the battered Thai tourism industry any improvement in tourism figures is good news and after a rough couple of months the industry is starting to receive more good news than bad by the day, with optimists predicting a near normal fourth quarter.

According to Seni Puwasetthawon, president of the Tourism Association of Koh Samui, tourists from Europe in particular have again started placing bookings for destinations such as Samui, Phuket and Pattaya for July and August, much to the relief of tourism industry operators.

According to Mr. Seni the occupancy rate of hotels on Samui is currently as low as 20 to 30 percent, but it is expected this will rise to 50 or 60 percent in August and between 80 and 90 percent during the high season starting in September.

With about 17,000 rooms, tourism is the islands major industry and the downfall in international visitors has seen many hotels offering discounts of up to 50 percent for domestic tourists in an attempt to fill the shortfall.

However, the average stay by Thai tourists is only one night, compared to five nights by foreign visitors and it is expected the number of foreign tourists visiting Samui this year will drop to between 800,000 and 900,000 against 1.1 million last year.

On the island of Phuket, Bhuritt Maswongssa, vice-president of the Phuket Tourism Association, said that while the average occupancy across the island was only about 40 to 45 percent, he expected this figure to increase to 80 percent during the November to April high season.

Inbound foreign visitors to Phuket this year are forecast at 4 million [Note: AoT counts arrivals and departures, so halve that figure], unchanged from last year, with more than half of them expected during the high season, though revenue is expected to drop from Bt90 million ($2.769 b) to Bt80 million ($2.461 b).

Vichit Prakobgosol, President of the Thai-Chinese Tourism Alliance Association, said Chinese tourists were also expected to begin returning this month following the easing of the travel warning by Beijing.

Mr. Vichit said ordinarily Thailand welcomes between 70,000 and 80,000 Chinese tourists a month and this month he expected about 40,000 to 50,000 with the figure rising to about 90,000 in September. However, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Thailand this year is expected to drop to around 900,000, against an earlier estimate of one million.

Based on these prediction Wichit Na Ranong, honorary adviser to the Tourism Council of Thailand, said the industry was expected to revive in the third and the fourth quarters, with about 14.1 million foreign visitors to Thailand for the year, or about the same as in 2009.

By John Le Fevre

Thailand Travel News for July 06, 2010