Thailand Southern city of Hat Yai confirmed that its popularity is back as most of hotels were fully booked for the Chinese New Year.
BANGKOK- Hotel rooms in Thailand’s southern tourist haven of Hat Yai were at full occupancy, completely sold out, mostly by tourists for the Chinese New Year this weekend, the Thai News Agency reported on Friday.
Somchart Pimthanapoonporn, President of the Hat Yai-Songkhla Hotel Association, said Hat Yai’s business district is lively and the city has been festooned with Chinese-style decorations ahead of the city’s Chinese New Year 2013.
He said all the city’s hotel rooms are fully booked for the Feb. 10-16 festival, with an increased inflow of both domestic and international tourists feeling confident about the government’s security measures.
He said combined forces of police, soldiers and civilians have been deployed across the city round the clock and checkpoints have been set up to ensure safety for local residents and tourists as part of the stiff security measures to prevent any untoward incident by insurgent groups.
About 6.7 million U.S. dollars is expected to be circulated during the upcoming festivities, said the association president.
In 2011, the province of Songkhla- where the city of Hat Yai is located-welcomed 865,000 foreign guests staying in commercial accommodation, up by 38.8% over 2010. However the bulk of foreign guests came from Malaysia (661,000) and Singapore (199,000) far ahead of visitors from China and Hong Kong (1,600 in 2011). Indonesian travellers were the third largest foreign nationals to visit Songkhla province. They represented close to 12,000 of them recorded in commercial accommodation in 2011.
(Source: Xinhua)
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
