Hotel occupancy and room rates soar as Phuket heads towards recovery
High-season room rates on the island have surged, with five-star hotels charging as much as 20,000 baht per night
The average hotel occupancy rate in Phuket for the first 11 months of 2024 stands at 77%, marking a 7% increase from the previous year, the Thai Hotels Association’s Southern Chapter reported on Friday.
Thanks to the continued recovery of tourism on the resort island, many hotel operators say that their daily room rates during this year’s high season were also the highest ever, Suksit Suvunditkul, the chapter’s president said.
He said four-star hotels that charge 2,500-3,000 baht per night during the low season are able to raise their prices to more than 5,000 baht per night this year.
The average per-night room rate between December 24 and January 5 stands at 8,000 to 14,000 baht, he said, while the rate for New Year’s Eve is upward from 10,000 baht. In five-star hotels, the per-night rate can go as high as 20,000 baht, especially for last-minute bookings.
The association believes that the occupancy rate in December will come in at around 86-90%, pushing the entire year’s average to 78-79%. Meanwhile, the occupancy rate in the first two months of 2025 will remain as high as 90%.
“The pandemic provided important lessons for Phuket’s tourism sector, which has now made a remarkable comeback. Operators are now better prepared to manage risks in a volatile economy,” Suksit said.
He added that hotel operators have strengthened their financial management, human resources and work structure to improve efficiency. Most hotels now employ about 75% of the staff they did before the pandemic, with an emphasis on multi-tasking and streamlining the work process.
This allows employees to earn more in service charge due to the smaller number of staff, he added.
The association estimated that some 13.5 million tourists will visit Phuket this year, which is similar to the numbers in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic crippled the tourism industry worldwide.
In the first nine months of this year, 9.55 million people arrived in Phuket. 7.36 million or 77% of whom were foreigners, while 2.19 million or 23% were Thais.
