The kudos for Thailand’s response to the global coronavirus pandemic is well deserved.

As a country with a population of 70 million, having reported only 3,376 cases and 58 deaths as of mid-August is remarkable. Most critically, Thailand has not had a single COVID-19-related death in over two months. Community transmission has been largely eradicated.

In terms of overnight tourist spend, Phuket ranks even higher, coming in 10th globally, at $12 billion. This makes the ratio of international overnight tourist spend to GDP for Phuket a staggering 179% – the highest in the world.

Understanding the stakes, the Thai government has dealt with the pandemic proactively and aggressively. Despite Thailand and Phuket having every economic incentive to restart tourism as quickly as possible, the government has set public health as the top priority and has acted prudently regarding reopening decisions.

Over the coming months, by teaming up with the data science team at LodgIQ, Phocuswright is evaluating a broad swathe of hotel-related and other data across a variety of key metropolitan
areas.

Our key objectives are to model the:

• Level of disruption
• Duration of disruption
• Shape of the recovery curve

The goal is to understand the similarities and differences in hotel market dynamics between destinations.

This is especially relevant, as some markets may have yet to peak in terms of the level of infections, while others are seeing active coronavirus case counts decline.

The 12th COVID-19 Hotel Forecast report, written by Robert Cole, covers the Thai island of Phuket. It is available for free below (download here).