February 2, 2005.Foreign tourists have begun to return to this resort island one month after the tsunami struck coastal areas of the southern Andaman provinces , according to a senior official of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).

Suvalai Pinpradub, Director of the TAT Southern Office: Region 4, said the tourism situation in Phuket had now begun to improve with more tourist arrivals and a gradual increase in hotel and resort occupancy.

Although the number of tourists would not be as much as before, she believed, it would continue to increase gradually.

She projected tourist arrivals would rise further this month with hotel occupancy likely to increase to 30-50% since there is a Chinese Lunar Year festival.

Normally, a large number of foreign and local tourists would travel to Phuket during the festival because grand events are held to celebrate the new Lunar Year. Mrs. Suvalai disclosed the inbound flight schedule shows a group of Hong Kong tourists is set to arrive in the resort city today by a chartered Boeing 747-400 plane of the Orient Thai Airline.

A group of 160 tourists from Europe and Scandinavia will arrive in the province tomorrow by a chartered plane of Sweden`s Britannea Airline and another group of Korean tourists will come in by a chartered plane on February 3.

It is expected Chinese tourists would gradually travel to the province following the Chinese Lunar Year festival, she said.

Theodore Koumelis - Wednesday, February 02, 2005

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