Deckchair vendors in Patong must treble their capacity to survive

The legal deckchair touts in Patong have requested that the local authorities increase the number of available chairs and umbrellas by a factor of two. They argue that the current quantity is insufficient to meet the demand for their services on Phuket’s Patong Beach.

As part of a new strategy to restrict the activities of approximately sixty small-scale operators along Patong Beach as a whole, the beachfront area that they are allowed to use has been reduced to just 10%. There have been allegations that “some people” are blocking views of the beach and the ocean.

Patong Beach, which is populated by wide-eyed tourists interested in looking at the very ordinary daytime vista, is not exactly a beauty spot, at least not in the traditional sense. Patong Beach is located in Phuket, Thailand. It has never been made clear who these complainers are or what their motivations are for making their complaints. There has been no public disclosure of any numbers regarding the number of complaints that have been received regarding the number of chairs on the beach.

The few operators that are still in business claim that the restrictions imposed on them over the past three years have had a significant impact on their businesses. It is not reasonable to assume that there have been no complaints at all and that someone in a position of authority is conspiring to defraud people, but Patong is not a reasonable place to make such an assumption. The fact that complaints have been lodged in other resorts regarding the high cost of beach chairs and the lack of availability of said chairs demonstrates that there is an obvious opportunity for financial gain.

The daily report from immigration control at Phuket International Airport indicates that there were a total of 300,000 visitors to the island between November 1 and December 6. Prior to the pandemic, Phuket anticipated welcoming upwards of 700,000 visitors in November; however, the actual number of tourists, as well as the demand for deckchairs along with them, is approximately half of the level seen historically.

The number of tourists arriving from Russia is currently the highest, followed by approximately 35,000 tourists from India, 17,000 tourists from Australia, and the remaining tourists coming from Singapore, the United Kingdom, Germany, Kazakhstan, and Malaysia. From July 1 through December 6, a total of only 1,500,000 tourists from other countries visited Phuket.