PHUKET has smashed all previous records for the number of passengers passing through Phuket International Airport. Let's spell out the total of Phuket air arrivals and departures in 2010 slowly: seven million, forty-three thousand, seven hundred and eighty three.

This is good for Phuket, and along with Phang Nga and Krabi, Greater Phuket as well. It's a superb effort on the part of marketing organisations to keep bums on seats and in resort bedrooms through one of the toughest years that Thailand tourism has experienced.

Yet as almost everyone connected with tourism can tell you, the crunch issue is that many of those travellers have been induced to come to Phuket (and the Greater Phuket region) by reduced accommodation rates and tour packages.

The 'Sale On' sign has been hanging out there, virtually all year long, even before the Bangkok street violence of April and May.

If the really good times ever return, Phuket will be in a position to shrug off the low-value returns and restore some sense to room rates and the low-spending tourist Phuket is currently attracting.

Until then . . . best enjoy the celebration of having 7,043,783 arrivals and departures in 2010.

The management and staff at Phuket International Airport deserve considerable credit for stretching the perceived maximum number of arrivals and departures from 6.5 million upwards to beyond seven million.

Can they keep doing it through the Phuket airport expansion program that will take the number to 12.5 million or even 15 million? We are about to find out . . .

December traffic suffered from the untimely slowdown in Europe and the fake tsunami forecast. International travellers actually surged past domestic travellers, leading to a relatively low increase of 9.78 percent overall for December on Phuket.

International numbers rose 24.55 percent compared to a fall of 3.11 percent in domestic traffic. Too much tsunami crystal ball gazing, it seems.

Overall in 2010, international arrivals and departures by air on Phuket were up by a massive 45.90 percent. Domestic traffic recorded just a 6.09 percent rise over 2009.

The total increase for Phuket when both sets of figures were combined was 21.87 percent. The 7,043,783 figure compared with 5,779,918 for 2009.

Flights in and out of Phuket for the year nudged 50,000 - at 48,568 for 2010, up 28.25 percent, that's a lot of air traffic control.

The point that really needs to be emphasised is that these figures are constantly misread - even by people who should know better.

Because the Phuket airport management tally both arrivals and departures, cut the seven million figure in half and you have a reasonably accurate guide to the number of incoming trips made to Phuket by both international and domestic travellers.

Allow 10 percent or 15 percent of that for frequent travellers from Phuket, and the ballpark figure for tourist visitors to Phuket by air now stands at about three million.