Forty-seven cruise liners have already been scheduled to visit Koh Samui in Surat Thani province this year, bringing at least 25,000 passengers to the southern resort island, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).
Kanokkittika Kritwuthikorn, TAT's director for Koh Samui, said most of the visitors on the 47 vessels would be travellers from the United States, Europe and Australia.
In January alone 10 cruise liners would arrive at the southern tourist island, she said.
On Saturday Koh Samui welcomed visitors on two cruise liners. They included 2,852 tourists, mostly Asian, on Celebrity Solstice who arrived from Hong Kong via Vietnam. The ship was later destined for Singapore.
The other vessel was Mein Schiff 5 which arrived with 2,543 tourists, mostly German, who arrived from Singapore and Kuala Lumpur and would travel on to Vietnam.
Visitors on both cruise liners had a one-day excursion to Koh Samui and were expected to spend about 20 million baht on the island, Ms Kanokkittika said.
She said that last year nearly 50,000 visitors arrived at Koh Samui on cruise liners, spending a total of about 150 million baht.
