Thailand to Expand Airport Capacities

Phuket, Thailand's top resort destination, is showing an increase of 20 percent in arrivals numbers for the first half of 2011, up from the same period last year. It is expected that 7.95 million passengers will enter Thailand's airports this year, according to C9 Hotelworks' Phuket Hotel Market Update.

A $164 million expansion plan is in effect, which will increase handling to 12.5 million at Thai airports by 2014.

"As long as the infrastructure keeps pace with the increased numbers of tourists and expansion of hotels and facilities are well planned and implemented, hotels will be able to properly managed room rates in line with the supply and demand dynamics," said Bill Barnet, Managing Director of C9 Hotelworks.

The report shows that Phuket's hospitality sector has 6,968 rooms in the pipeline.