PHUKET: Phuket International Airport's new overseas terminal will open on February 14 - Valentine's Day - next year, the holiday island's governor told a meeting this week.
Governor Nisit Jansomwong said he had asked the Airports of Thailand management to consider putting in a counter in the new terminal to target ''fully independent travellers.''
''We need to encourage more FIT tourists so we need to cater to them and let them know we are determined to please them,'' the governor told a meeting of Tourism and Sport directors from the Andaman cluster, which includes Phuket, Phang Nga, Krabi, Ranong, Trang and Satun.
He said that in some ways, Phuket was now a year-round holiday island.
The owner of Simon Cabaret, one of Phuket's distinctive katoey ladyboy shows, told him recently that the venue had just as many people attending shows during the April-October low season as during the November-March high season.
''I would like to support FIT tourists on Phuket and around the Andaman region,'' the governor said. ''That's how we can have a say in the region's future.''
The number of tourists flying to Phuket continues to rise but the nature of the holiday business is changing.
More Chinese package visitors are coming. However, they spend just a few days on the holiday island compared to the long-haul Europeans, who are no longer coming in increasing numbers.
For Phuket's resort managers, the swing in core dynamics also means higher costs with registered venues increasingly competing with apartments of all sizes, offering lower rates but lower standards.
There is also an increasing drift of regulars off the island, to Andaman destinations that remain how Phuket was a decade ago - relaxed, tropical and less urban in character.
Clashes between the old and the new Phuket continue, with local bus owners demanding that local businesses be obliged to hire them rather than the network of better-insured buses available from off the island.
Local guides too want to be given preference, with as many as 200 unemployed guides turning out at Phuket Provincial Hall this week to insist on their right to work.
Local Tourism and Sport director Santi Palai told them, quite rightly, that his staff can point out that international guides do not have the right to work on Phuket.
But arresting them was the job of police.
It has also been pointed out that many local guides are poorly trained and do not have the same skills as the interlopers who are ''taking their jobs''.
Taxi drivers on the island also claim the same entitlement, saying they have the right to charge excessive fares and park wherever they wish.
Along the holiday island's west coast, vendors who have been illegally making a living for years on Phuket's public beaches maintain they have the same odd right to continue to break the law.
In the water, the jet-skis and parasailers - operating illegally under Thai law - now insist on their right to control the sands of Patong, touting for business on the public beach and on public thoroughfares.
This week we learned that lawyers on Phuket who illegally acknowledge documents transferring property ownership, robbing rightful owners, still go unpunished, according to the BBC.
When challenged, one lawyer said that's just the way it's done on Phuket.
The Governor departs the holiday island at the end of the month.
He does not need to be told that it's time to put an end to Phuket's culture of entitlement and corruption.
Law-abiding residents who want Phuket to have a future live in hope that one day, things might change on the paradise island.
Perhaps the new governor can start by making Phuket truly competitive and corruption-free.
It's worth a try. And Valentine's Day is an ideal time for tough love.
Governor Nisit Jansomwong said he had asked the Airports of Thailand management to consider putting in a counter in the new terminal to target ''fully independent travellers.''
''We need to encourage more FIT tourists so we need to cater to them and let them know we are determined to please them,'' the governor told a meeting of Tourism and Sport directors from the Andaman cluster, which includes Phuket, Phang Nga, Krabi, Ranong, Trang and Satun.
He said that in some ways, Phuket was now a year-round holiday island.
The owner of Simon Cabaret, one of Phuket's distinctive katoey ladyboy shows, told him recently that the venue had just as many people attending shows during the April-October low season as during the November-March high season.
''I would like to support FIT tourists on Phuket and around the Andaman region,'' the governor said. ''That's how we can have a say in the region's future.''
The number of tourists flying to Phuket continues to rise but the nature of the holiday business is changing.
More Chinese package visitors are coming. However, they spend just a few days on the holiday island compared to the long-haul Europeans, who are no longer coming in increasing numbers.
For Phuket's resort managers, the swing in core dynamics also means higher costs with registered venues increasingly competing with apartments of all sizes, offering lower rates but lower standards.
There is also an increasing drift of regulars off the island, to Andaman destinations that remain how Phuket was a decade ago - relaxed, tropical and less urban in character.
Clashes between the old and the new Phuket continue, with local bus owners demanding that local businesses be obliged to hire them rather than the network of better-insured buses available from off the island.
Local guides too want to be given preference, with as many as 200 unemployed guides turning out at Phuket Provincial Hall this week to insist on their right to work.
Local Tourism and Sport director Santi Palai told them, quite rightly, that his staff can point out that international guides do not have the right to work on Phuket.
But arresting them was the job of police.
It has also been pointed out that many local guides are poorly trained and do not have the same skills as the interlopers who are ''taking their jobs''.
Taxi drivers on the island also claim the same entitlement, saying they have the right to charge excessive fares and park wherever they wish.
Along the holiday island's west coast, vendors who have been illegally making a living for years on Phuket's public beaches maintain they have the same odd right to continue to break the law.
In the water, the jet-skis and parasailers - operating illegally under Thai law - now insist on their right to control the sands of Patong, touting for business on the public beach and on public thoroughfares.
This week we learned that lawyers on Phuket who illegally acknowledge documents transferring property ownership, robbing rightful owners, still go unpunished, according to the BBC.
When challenged, one lawyer said that's just the way it's done on Phuket.
The Governor departs the holiday island at the end of the month.
He does not need to be told that it's time to put an end to Phuket's culture of entitlement and corruption.
Law-abiding residents who want Phuket to have a future live in hope that one day, things might change on the paradise island.
Perhaps the new governor can start by making Phuket truly competitive and corruption-free.
It's worth a try. And Valentine's Day is an ideal time for tough love.
The greed of Phuket officials and landlords filtered through the whole of Phuket society with everybody wanting a slice of what they thought was a never ending tourist pie.
What we got was never ending rip offs and gouging until most regulars had enough and now go elsewhere. Phuket is getting exactly the market it deserves.
Posted by Arun Muruga on September 25, 2015 12:55