Over the past week, we have been compiling our latest hospitality, tourism, and hotel research on Thailand’s second-largest island, Koh Samui. The island remains a bit of a ‘little-big’ anomaly in Southeast Asia’s massive resort island arsenal. Despite hosting famed global hotel brands such as Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, W, InterContinental, and Banyan Tree, its smallish private airport capacity has somehow created a natural barrier to mass tourism in the development-crazed last 25 years.
Looking at the tourism recovery trajectory in our newly released Samui Hotel Market Update 2023, the best word I could use for growth was the impish term ‘moderate.’ No, the island has not broken into a full sweat, but looking at the mounting hotel room night demand in Q4 of last year and into the first quarter of 2023, there are positive signs of momentum.
One of the most important…
