Tourist arrivals to Surat Thani over the New Year holiday rose 7% from the same period last year to almost 90,000, with spending estimated at 1.7 billion baht, according to governor Witchawut Jinto.
The figures will be good news for struggling hoteliers on the province’s main tourist island, Koh Samui, where a severe room oversupply has brought down occupancy rates.
Data from the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) showed that 88,363 tourists — 80% of them foreigners — visited tourist islands in the province between Dec 28 and Jan 1.
Koh Samui received 45,000 visits and an estimated one billion baht in revenue. Koh Phangan attracted 15,000 tourists who contributed 180 million baht to the local economy, and Koh Tao saw 8,000 visitors spend almost 100 million baht. The remaining tourists visited other destinations and spent a total of 400 million baht.
Most of the tourists were Europeans, according to the TAT.
The province expects brisk tourism business throughout the year as cruises will bring some 5,000 tourists from Europe and North America to Koh Samui during the next 10 months, said Mr Witchawut.
The island’s hoteliers are keeping their fingers crossed, having seen occupancy between Oct 1 and Dec 20 of 2019 plunge to 30% from 50% in the same period of 2018.
During the last two weeks of December, the occupancy rate usually reaches 90%, which helps ease some of the hardship.
Hoteliers attributed the low figures to the strong baht and the economic impact of the US-China trade war, as Chinese visitors flocked to cheaper beach destinations in Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Bookings so far for the first quarter of this year on Samui stand at just 35% of available rooms, down from 50-60% normally, said Vorasit Pongkumpunt, president of the Tourism Association of Koh Samui.
He said the situation could worsen with at least 1,000 rooms from big chains due to bearded to the market. He fears a price war in light of a glut of 30,000 rooms, which could lead to layoffs and other social problems.