Over 60 hotels have been certified in the SHA Plus safety and health program according to hospitality consulting group C9 Hotelworks’ research in anticipation of overseas travellers flying to Koh Samui …the idyllic holiday island in the Gulf of Thailand.
According to media reports, Bangkok Airways has confirmed three domestic daily sealed route flights from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport starting in the middle of the month. International Samui Plus visitors will be required to fly via Bangkok and transit on these designated flights.
Koh Samui’s island economy is heavily dependent on tourism with over 600 registered tourism establishments and nearly 24,000 rooms. The impact of the pandemic can best be highlighted when looking at the airlift, comparing pre-pandemic 2019 and the onset and ongoing impact of Covid-19 which saw airline passenger traffic drop 64% year-on-year.
C9 Hotelworks Managing Director Bill Barnett said that the learnings from the first week of the Phuket Sandbox will likely follow a similar pattern. Over 2,300 international arrivals have come to the island with more than 140,000 confirmed hotel nights booked in SHA Plus hotels through August. Demand has remained strong and is now demonstrated, which bodes well for Koh Samui’s chances.
He added that an ancillary impact of the Sandbox is the restoration of regularly scheduled direct flights between the two islands from 16th July starting with four flights a week this month and becoming daily in August. In analyzing tourism, we look to the sky for answers as the logical starting point, and this increased airlift is a key driver for the tourism economy.
As Covid-19 has drastically impacted the tourism industry, global data group STR’s Area Director for Asia Pacific Jesper Palmqvist assessed that since Q2 in 2020 when the crisis started, we have seen three hotel peak periods in Koh Samui, where levels reached beyond the bare minimum - Mid-October 2020 for the long weekend, New Year's Eve, and most recently the Songkran holiday where occupancies reached close to 50%. These spikes in demand came from the domestic market and once the international factor comes into play, more stability will evolve.
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