The number of foreign tourist arrivals during August dropped from an overage of 12,000 arrivals per day in the first week to an average of around 8,000 in the last week of the month.
August and September are notoriously quiet months for the island’s tourism although the steep drop off is causing concern for Phuket’s tourist stakeholders. But, compared to the July foreign arrival statistics from the Immigration department, the total number of arrivals only dropped from 320,264 to 309,253 for August.
For rooms booked each day, the average dropped from around 14,500 rooms in the first week of August down to around 11,000 per day in the last week of the month with the graph trending towards a greater drop for the month of September.
For nationalities, the Chinese, despite lower numbers at this time, are still maintaining their number one spot for island tourism with the Russian arrivals still trending down after the flurry of arrivals at the end of 2022 and the first few months of 2023. Australian, Indian and Malaysian arrivals are making up the top 4 arrivals for the month of August.
Russian citizens remain the most numerous expat group on Phuket and have been driving the highest number of property sales for the first 6 months of 2023.
