Phuket Tourism Arrivals To Rise With Airport Expansion As Chinese Continue Massive Inflow To Thailand

Thailand is ramping up on efforts to draw in foreign visitors as indicated by the latest announcement from the national government that another airport will be constructed in support of the continuous massive tourism entries in Phuket. Along this line, China remains the biggest source of tourist arrivals into the country.

Starting in 2019, Phuket will build a second airport that when completed will accommodate hundreds of thousands more of additional passengers, the majority reportedly touching down on the capital Bangkok before heading to the southern province. The plan, according to C9 Hotelworks, is for the new airport to become operational by 2025.

Dubbed as the second Greater Phuket Airport, C9 said the upcoming facility will serve the exploding number of visitors making their way to the island of Phuket, many originating from within Thailand.

The popular holiday destination saw over eight million arrivals at the close of 2017 and by the end of 2018 the figures are expected to balloon, predicted to reach 9.7 million and likely breach the 10 million mark over the next five years.

Tourism Golden Triangle

The infrastructure build up, which the C9 report said is in enormous scale, is envisioned to create for Phuket “a golden triangle of tourism,” that will directly benefit the tourism zones of Mai Khao, Phang Nga and Krabi. The latter province is likewise to get a major upgrade on its existing airport, which will soon see the addition of a Terminal 3.

Thailand is projected to spend billions of dollars on its tourism-tied infrastructure undertakings but the expenditures are seen to deliver due benefits over the long term. Phuket, for instance, is widely considered as the top resort market in Southeast Asia, which solidly indicates of steady tourism revenues to come.

Welcome “Chinese Invasion”

Supporting such a rosy projection is the latest data that stated the country continues to attract millions of holidaymakers from abroad. And the largest wave of arrivals seen in the first quarter of 2018 was traced from China, a new report said.

From January to April, some 4.1 million Chinese tourists picked Thailand as their vacation destination, an improvement of more than 30 percent from the same period in 2017, Thailand Business News reported. The same report took note that on the average, more than one million visitors from China made their way to Thailand each month.

In sum, nearly 14 million foreign nationals landed on Thailand in Q1 2018, leading to an uptick of 13.9 percent from the same months last year, the news story added.

Thanks to these massive arrivals, Thailand has realised an estimated revenue of $22.8 billion in the beginning quarter alone of 2018, indicating that the Thai tourism industry is well-positioned for further growth trajectory in the months and years ahead.