Monsoon Season Can't Wash Away Optimism

Posted: 10 Jul 2010 | 10:43 am

The Phuket Gazette.

The jungle drums of monsoon season rains pounding on the roof of my office tend to lull me into a tribal trance-like state.

Perhaps my secretary sneaked some kava-kava into my morning java. It's all blurring into images of tiki bar tackiness or coconuts falling as gorillas line dance in the mist.

As if on que, as the sun fades away from high season and storm clouds gather momentum, island-variety psychological disorders tend to create a routine panic each year in Phuket

The current state of the property and tourism market is at the center of Phuket's "low season", or the slightly cheerier sounding "monsoon season."

While the weather leaves us wet and soggy and a tad sorry for ourselves that business is down due to tourists droves heading to European hot-spots, there has been a few sunny spells recently in Phuket's tourism industry.

In May, while the world was gripped by news from the Capital, Phuket recorded its highest airport traffic figures in the past six years. Yes, six, meaning all those good, bad and ugly years all rolled up.

With total passengers tallying in at 424,456, May saw an 18.1% increase over the same month in 2009. Perhaps more telling was the compelling statistic on aircraft movements, which showed at 25.1% uplift in May 2010, or 3,561 versus 2,846 one year ago.

For many tourist destinations in Asia, the largest stonewall to success is summarized with the phrase, "you can't stay there if you can't get there." But for Phuket, the availability of flights continues on up the escalator.

Meanwhile, in the island's hotel and property rental sectors, hotel supply has continued to grow, and new condo and villa projects are reporting positive news in the rental market.

A spike in residential units with part-time and full-time newcomers moving in.

The service sector is also blossoming, with medical tourism doing well, new private education institution's popping up, yachting services reporting growth in business and technological resources improving on the island at a faster rate than ever.

Life is good, and Phuket remains a vital life force here in Thailand.

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