THE ARRIVAL of several more new resorts in Phuket's secluded Nai Thon beach will test the ability of local authorities to cope - and add confusion because of different slices of the Indigo brand.

Staff at the Indigo Pearl Resort Phuket in neighboring Nai Yang beach reacted in a confused fashion when told by Phuketwan yesterday that Hotel Indigo Phuket Naithon Beach Resort is to open a few kilometres away at Nai Thon in 2014.

It's plain that travellers may well be confused, too. Throw in Phuket's existing Indigo Real Estate, and this confusion multiplies a little further.

What the profusion of Indigos also demonstrates is the rapidity with which change is reaching Phuket's quieter beaches.

The local council that oversees both Nai Yang and Nai Thon already has a serious problem on its hands in dealing with the Nai Yang beachfront, where the ''greed rush'' of commercialisation of public land is evident, and where local residents this week mounted a protest to Phuket's administrative headquarters in Phuket City.

How will the Sakoo authorities cope with rapid change at both Nai Yang and Nai Thon? The answer, evident at other beaches, is: probably not well.

Phuketwan believes it's time all of Phuket's beaches were brought under a single authority, one that will protect them, not allow them to be gradually privatised and covered in restaurants, jet-skis, massage tents, lounge chairs and umbrellas.

The neighboring province of Krabi has banned all these commercial operations, plus beach vendors: it's time the same approach was taken on Phuket, where even leading Patong businessman Preechavude Keesin believes the lounges should be replaced with towels-for-hire.

The shock of coral bleaching, the phenomenon that has badly damaged the Phuket region's other appealing natural treasure - the coral reefs and the beaches are Phuket's prime assets - has shown how vulnerable the Phuket tourism industry has become.

More and more resorts are on-stream to be built over the next few years. But if the coral reefs have gone and the beaches are degraded or destroyed by encroachment, who will want to holiday on Phuket?

The answer, Phuket believes, will be trippers who don't do their research, don't care about the environment, and who are only interested in having a good time. Perhaps a jet-ski vroom in the afternoon, a drinks session that starts over dinner, then a noisy nightclub until dawn?

The issues that are being played out now on the beaches, with thuggery at Surin, garbage buried in the sand at Layan and the takeover of park land at Nai Yang, are likely to become more evident all along Phuket's west coast.

Sustainability is not what it's about. Sustainability means one thing to a marine biologist and a very different concept to a resort developer.

Balance is what's required. But in the ''greed rush'' that has gripped Phuket, balance is slipping away rapidly.

The confusion caused by having two Indigo resorts as neighbors is far more easily resolved than the chaos now enveloping more and more Phuket beaches.

If the problems now assailing the coral reefs and the beaches are not corrected properly and quickly, Phuket's future will grow darker than indigo, and slip-slide downhill.