Phuket promotes Old Town as new brand tweaks visitor curiosity
Though Phuket is among the world’s most popular tourist destinations, injecting Bt477 billion to the economy and widely advertised as the “Pearl of the Andaman Sea”, its future status has been questioned due to competition from Indonesia and Vietnam.
In response, Phuket is making a move to focus on the city’s “Old Town” to attract more tourists, along with an “Endless Discovery” branding campaign to highlight the variety of local tourist options.
Don Limnantapisit, the president of the Phuket Old Town community, says most tourists have visited just about everywhere in Phuket – except for the Old Town.
Though the Old Town area has for 15 years encouraged tourist visits so that it wouldn’t disappear from Phuket’s map, only in the past two years has it seen much success in attracting tourists – thanks to the power of social media.
As well, CNN recently included Old Town on its list of Asia’s 13 most picturesque towns. In addition, Thailand’s Fine Arts Department and Phuket are working on a plan to register Old Town as a Unesco World Heritage Site.
The new “Phuket Endless Discovery” branding aims to tease the curiosity of travellers, said the president of the Phuket Tourism Association, Bhummikitti Ruktaengam
Statistics show a significant growth in travellers for meetings, incentive travel, conventions and exhibitions in Phuket. The figure for 2018 showed an increase to 2,216,230, up 167.94 per cent from 2017, bringing in Bt19.5 billion.
