News Forum - Koh Samui sees surge in sandbox bookings for October

[Thaiger]

Tourism officials on Koh Samui say its sandbox programme has received a boost following the lifting of its 3-day quarantine. According to a Bangkok Post report, new bookings in the first 10 days of October have already surpassed the total number of bookings since the island re-opened on July 15. Ratchaporn Poolsawadee from the Tourism Association of Koh Samui adds that the UK decision to remove Thailand from its red list has also led to an increase in the number of bookings by British nationals. “The UK market totally disappeared the past month after Thailand was put on the red […]

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[EdwardV]

A preview of things to come for other zones?

[DoUKnowWhoIAm]

22 minutes ago, Thaiger said:

received a boost following the lifting of its 3-day quarantine.

Yea, right

[Shade_Wilder]

"The Bangkok Post reports that in the first 10 days of this month, 955 tourists had made advance bookings for Samui, with 723 of them planning to visit this month, 158 next month, and 74 for December so far. In terms of nationality, 24.5% of visitors are from Germany, 13.4% from France, and 10.2% are Thai nationals."

This correlates with what I know of the island; Koh Samui is different in that it attracts more Europeans/North Americans/Russians than Chinese/other Asians as it is more of a 'beach' place than a 'shopping mall' place like Phuket and/or Bangkok, and generally speaking, Asians don't like to spend as much time on the beach as others.

I suspect that Samui will do okay in the next while, as long as Covid doesn't explode and Thailand doesn't shut again. It isn't actually a very big place, but it does receive a large number of 'Snowbirds', people looking to escape winter for 3-6 months, and these people rent local houses and eat in local restaurants. Yes, it'll be the smaller businessman who benefits, but the rich owners of the large hotels can take care of themselves (Boo-Hoo!). 

I am guessing it'll be a while before the "Two-Week Millionaires" return in any great numbers and, to be honest, I don't really miss them.

Hmm... a nice quiet lounge on the beach...

 

[AlexPTY]

I just wonder what EU citizens mentioned in the article think about their personal data, protected by GDPR, was made available to the third party. Just kidding...

[Jason]

If the usual international tourist spots want to capitalise on the "surge"....(It's not a surge by any stretch of the imagination), there's a few things that need to happen. Get rid of the series of hoops to jump through. In reality, international touristswill only tolerate three things. Negative PCR test in country of origin. Evidence of full vaccination and visa on arrival. Anything else and they'll go to the Seychelles :)

[kmc]

totally agree with Jason.

[PapayaBokBok]

Boy with all these "surges" its a wonder they still have space for any more of us!....hotels all booked up? 555