Proud Group, a property arm of the Liptapanlop family, is scheduled to hold a soft opening of its Andamanda leisure entertainment complex and water park in Phuket next week, one year behind schedule due to the pandemic.
Proudputh Liptapanlop, the group's executive director, said the soft opening of the water park on May 21 is on a 58-rai plot worth 3 billion baht, including the land price.
Located between the main tourism hubs of Phuket Town and Patong Beach, Andamanda will have a wide range of recreational components, including a Thai heritage-themed water park with five separate zones -- Coral World, The Pearl Palace, Emerald Forest, Great Andaman Bay and Naga Jungle -- plus entertainment spaces.
The company expects to attract 400,000 visitors this year, 70% of whom will be Thais, with the remaining 30% comprised of foreign tourists. Proud Group expects to break even on the water park project in six years.
"Tourism business in Phuket has continued to improve since early this year, mainly boosted by Indian tourists, with 1,000 people visiting Phuket each day," said Thapanee Kiatphaibool, deputy governor for domestic marketing at the Tourism Authority of Thailand. "We also expect to welcome 15,000 Australian tourists this month, up from 10,000 people in April. Moreover, tourists from the Middle East are also rising."
A total of 14.7 million tourists visited Phuket in 2019. The figures fell to 4 million in 2020 and 1.14 million in 2021.
"The Andamanda project will become an iconic entertainment landmark and help extend the length of stay per visit of foreign tourists here to 5-6 days, from the current 4-5 days, as well as help to boost Phuket's economy and create employment for local people,'' Ms Proudputh said.
According to Ms Proudputh, her company has already started construction of the Andamanda project's second phase on 8 rai of the land plot, which will comprise a 300-key Holiday Inn hotel and 2,000-square-metre lifestyle retail mall. Construction will continue over the next two years. After the completion of the entire project, the company expects to attract one million travellers per year, boosting the annual number of tourists in Phuket to 10 million.
"In the past 3-4 years, several new water parks opened in Asean, becoming one of the cultures of tourists," she said. "For Thailand, we also believe in the potential of the water theme park and entertainment complex business. We are also conducting a feasibility study to develop a new mixed-use leisure entertainment complex and water park on Koh Samui and in Bangkok."
Each water park project would be developed on a land plot of 30-40 rai and require an investment of 2 billion baht, excluding the hotel.
