PHUKET will achieve a record number of tourist arrivals this year. But many people will be left wondering where the money went - and what the future holds.

The paradoxes of the Phuket tourism business extend to resorts and flights, to tours and diving businesses and souvenir stalls, bringing into sharp focus the issue of Phuket's strengths and weaknesses.

In response to the severe test of political upheaval in Bangkok and unnecessary travel alerts, Phuket proved so resilient that a record number of travellers - probably exceeding the maximum capacity of 6.5 million arrivals and departures - will pass through Phuket International Airport this calendar year.

Yet people are now scratching their heads and wondering where Phuket's 2010-2011 high season went.

Phuket has longed for a more even tourism year, and now it has one. But a broad range of factors have flattened the peak season.

Instead of lifting the low season to high season levels, the grader of fate has levelled this high season flat, compacting it towards low season numbers.

For Phuket, the benefits of a boom year have scampered down a black hole faster than a scared rabbit. So many things went right in 2010. And so many things went wrong.



PHURIPAT Theerakulpisut, who as Chief of Phuket's Marine Office 5 oversees seaborne tourist traffic, was surprised by what he found this week. On a trip to check safety features including the provision of lifejackets, he found sea trips and tours had been cut by half.

''Businesses say it's as though the low season has come in the high season, that trippers have dropped by about 50 percent,'' he said. ''We would expect 18 or 20 boats to be heading out every day with tourists at this time of year.

''Nowadays, there are 10 to 12 venturing to sea from Rassada and Chalong pier [Phuket's two main departure points].''

The President of the Southern Region branch of the Thai Hotels Association, Suchart Hirankanokkul, reports that occupancy figures on and around Phuket are substantially down on expectations.

''Now the rate is 80-90 percent, which seems high except that in a normal year, we would be expecting to turn people away,'' he said.

And so the curse of Phuket has struck again, this time morphing into the unlikely shape of a fortune teller who predicts that a second tsunami will arrive tomorrow.

Suspicious Thais have stayed away in droves, says Khun Suchart. Given the sesitivity of Asians in general to such superstititons, Phuket's resorts, tourism authorities and national officials are now being urged to make the point in March at ITB Berlin, world's biggest travel fair, that Phuket and the Andaman is safe.

For resorts especially, that will mean throwing off their preference for secrecy about safety. But that's what the market is now demanding.

Europeans are also not travelling in their usual numbers this high season. Khun Suchart says this is mainly because the baht is riding so high against the euro, making long-haul travel too expensive for many.

The THA's marketing officer, Bhuritt Maswongssa, says that Bangkok talk of a boom on Phuket, triggered mostly by news of the airport expansion, has proved to be nonsense. He says Russian tourists among others are certainly coming in greater numbers, but the numbers have not been converted into increasing revenue.



ARE THERE too many hotels on Phuket? Yes, of course there are. The rate of increase in rooms is running ahead of increasing numbers of visitors.

Are they the right kind of visitors? No, they are not. In desperation, Phuket's tourism industry has slashed prices and done deals to keep the cash flowing.

While Phuket has emerged from the political violence of 2010 in better shape than any of its Thai counterparts, the cost has been a damaging change in direction.

Package tourism is never going to be a winning play for Phuket, where the region's potential as a playground for the wealthy remains unrealised. Fewer travellers with more money is what the island wants and deserves.

Only by heading that way can the natural attractions be properly preserved from the tramp of too many feet. But constant crisis economics have skewed the tourism market in the opposite direction.

Yet another ''crackdown'' by authorities is required to make sure that all future stocks in the resort and guesthouse business are legal and to a high standard, and that environmental legislation is enforced.

Phuket now more than ever desperately needs the guiding hand of a modern Lee Kuan Yew, a benevolent dictator with a strategy that goes beyond next year's bank account.

Only a special economic zone taking in Phuket, Phang Nga and Krabi can provide the cohesion to stabilise and improve Greater Phuket as a destination option between now and 2020.

Without government action, the future will remain decidedly hazy and unclear. To see that, we don't need a crystal ball.