Cheaper flights are expected to stimulate Phuket tourism

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Some believe that cheap or budget-friendly flights to Phuket will succeed in attracting tourists to Phuket Island and get its once booming holiday destination successful again. Discussions regarding lowering ticket price, those who took part at a stakeholder meeting at Bangkok, the Thai Airways International headquarters, explain that more direct international flights to the island also need to return.

The scarcity in international travel due to COVID severely damaged the tourism-dependent economy of Phuket. The resort island province has been working day and night on boosting up its domestic tourism in order to make up for the major revenue loss and keep the industry afloat.

Now, from Bangkok to Phuket, you can get discount seats and return for around 500 – 600 baht, taxes included, with Thai VietJet, Thai Lion Air and Nok Air. The taxi fare for the trip to Patong, Kat and Karon could cost somewhere around 800 – 1000 baht.

In Nov, almost 200,000 domestic tourists came to Phuket. However, that number isn’t close to what 2019’s numbers had reached. Last year, over 14 million international visitors to Phuket attracted 470 billion baht, making up 90% of the tourism revenue of the province.

As handful of tourism businesses are able to get accustomed and now cater to a local customer base, others are in dire need of foreign tourists to stay alive. Phuket governor, Narong Woonciew, at the stakeholder meeting, requested the airlines to add more flights, to keep ticket prices low and draw in more domestic visitors.

On Christmas, Thai Airways was all set to recommence their flight services from Bangkok to Phuket, but later pushed back the date on January 1st, 2021, due to the recent Covid-19 infections.

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