Four planeloads of Chinese tourists arrive in Samui each week, giving a big boost to the island’s tourism industry.
Tourist arrivals on the island, Seni said, went up 10-20 percent on the third quarter of this year, in part due to the increased tourist traffic from China. Business owners on the island are beginning to feel that tourism recovery is in the air, Seni said.
Four chartered flights arrive from China at the Suratthani airport every week. Each plane carries from 175 to 200 Samui-bound high-end tourists. Anek Nural, chief of theTourism Association in Suratthani, the tourism outlook on Koh Samui is better now than it was during the first half of the year. This will further improve, he said, because of the coming Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Suratthani Gov. Pracha Taerat has ordered improved security for tourists visiting Samui and other places in the province.
The governor said authorities were doing everything they could to make the visit of these high-end Chinese tourists as safe as possible to encourage more people from China to visit the island.
X2 Resort Samui, which recently hosted 24 Chinese tourists for three days, praised the travel company, Samui Sunshine, for organizing the chartered flights.
Given the depressed state of the hospitality industry both worldwide and locally, it said, Samui Sunshine should be applauded for successfully exploring other markets for Samui tourism.
On their arrival at the resort, the 24 Chinese guests and guides were welcomed personally by Astudo Hotel & Resort Group’s operations manager, J. Paul Snow, and X2 resort manager Pasuta Sukmanop.
All 24 guests were upgraded to X2 Pool Villas and treated to a feast of the best in Thai cuisine at the X2 swimming pool and 4K Restaurant overlooking the beach.
