On Thailand’s Koh Samui, chain hotels look beyond Chinese tourists for a post-pandemic rebound

On the Thai island of Samui, high-end hotel chains have been expanding to take advantage of pent-up travel demand as the country further eases entry rules

Thailand’s government is aiming for 10 million international visitors this year, but high-value Chinese tourists are unlikely to be among them for a while yet

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A beach on the Thai island of Samui. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 8:30am, 7 Apr 2022

So many tourists used to visit Chaweng beach on the Thai island of Samui before the pandemic that “you could not find the seats or the sand”, according to hotelier Patrick Moukarzel.

For now there’s plenty of space, but the island’s tourism industry is not banking on that lasting much longer after Thailand further relaxed entry rules for vaccinated foreigners this month.

Hotels like the Centara Reserve Samui, where Moukarzel is general manager, are gearing up to take advantage of the pent-up demand – even though he estimates that visitor numbers to the island where the six-star resort is located are currently only “15 per cent of what they used to be”.

Some bars and shops remain closed on Samui, but as international visitors begin to trickle in, other businesses and people who made their living from tourism before the pandemic have started to return, hoping to cash in on the rebound.

Among them is Pong, a 43-year-old taxi driver who returned to Samui in February after the island began allowing in visitors without quarantine in October under a tourism sandbox programme.