Phuket tourism market recovers with promise of high momentum for rest of the year

Phuket hotels experienced promising momentum for the first half of 2023, which has set an optimistic path for the remainder of the year. At the mid-year juncture, international and domestic flight volume was already up 75% over total flights in 2022.

Russia and China led the way as the two top tourism source markets in the first six months of the year according to research from C9 Hotelworks in their new Phuket Hotel Market Update report. Rounding out the top 5 overseas marketplaces were India, Australia and Kazakhstan.

Market-wide hotel occupancy in H1 surpassed the 70% threshold but the real boost for hotel owners has been a sustained post-pandemic trend in higher room rates.  While business has returned to usual for much of the over 2,000 Phuket registered accommodation establishments encompassing 106,000 rooms, hotel owners and operators have been plagued by recurring staff shortages.