WHILE doing some data gathering recently on tourist arrivals on the island, we stumbled on the information that a number of high-end resorts and hotels here have between 70 and 80 percent room occupancy this month (August).

One claimed they even went above 80 percent because of group bookings.

This is a welcome news indeed, considering that the economic difficulty has beaten blue the local industry for several months now.

It is also a good sign for local businesses, which have been forced to make major reductions in overhead expenses as they tried to survive the past lean months.

A number of small and big businesses were reportedly forced to cease or scale down operations as tourism suffered perhaps its worst period because of the political unrest in the capital, the global economic meltdown and the swine-flu scare.

The country’s tourism industry has been on the downward trend for so many months and Koh Samui, being one of the top destinations, naturally felt the strong impact of this.

Hopefully, as the swine-flu scare and the domestic political unrest subside and the global economic slowdown begins to show signs of recovery, more and more tourists will flock again to Koh Samui not only during the coming high season but also the rest of next year.

But as we look forward to a vastly improved situation for tourism, we express at the same time our hope that having gone through a most trying time for the industry, the stakeholders, from vendors to taxi drivers and tourist-oriented establishments, as well as the island residents and businesses in general, will now work together to ensure that the visitors who step on this famed island will encounter the best hospitality that Thailand has been known for and the service and environment that will make them want to come back again and again.

Samui’s image as a tourist destination has been tainted a bit by so many negative things of late and these things have to be given foremost attention by those concerned.

Once these matters are addressed, we can only expect better days ahead as tourists will continue to put Thailand as their top holiday destination, and without these things that will make them think twice to come, they will always choose “The Land of Smiles” over other destinations. —