To bring the joy and excitement to the country which has just been severely affected by the recent political unrest, the organizer is trying to attract 50,000 foreign and domestic visitors by presenting dance and music performance by world class artists from England, Singapore, Japan, and Thailand itself in various genres including hip-hop, pop, reggae, dance, and much more.

Among local performers are 4GZM, Tamone, Joe Fax, Buddha Bless, Job To Do and Maha Jamroen. To add an excitement, rocker Vudtinun Bhirombhakdi will invite two rock bands Silly Fool and Seal to perform together. A long string of both local and foreign DJs will participate including DJ Yoji from Japan, DJ B from Singapore, DJ Angnelli from UK, and Thai DJs Spyda Monkey and Thanathorn.

“Phuket Music Festival will become the biggest, most comprehensive, and most unique beach-side music festival in Thailand”, said Suraphon Svetasreni, TAT Governor. “Other than being popular as the Pearl of Andaman for its natural beauty Phuket will start to attract visitors or its largest beach moonlit dance floor where everyone can freely enjoy”, he added.

Focused to attract visitors from neighboring countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong, the event is expected to bring 400-500 million baht into the country. Local provincial authority is committed to supporting the event especially in traffic management and security. Hotels operators to support by offering discounts and special packages.

Phuket is historically has nothing to do with the political unrest involving the factions known as the red shirts and the yellow shirts, the core behind the recent violent rally in Bangkok. Furthermore there are strong evidence that Phuket is rather independent from Thailand. Therefore players of tourism and real estate industries confident that the visitors and buyers are coming back soon. Detail at Phuket Propery Business is Recovering.

Whilst throughout May Phuket has started having sporadic rain, parts of Phuket remained with shortage of water supply. Head of Phuket’s Office for Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, Sun Jantarawong, said part of Thalang including Mai Khao, Sakhoo, Pa Khlok, and Thepkrasattri remained in shortage. “Fortunately the local administration managed good water management system in place”, he said.

Statistic from the Meteorological Department recorded a decrease of total rainfall in May compared to the previous period last year. Total rainfall of May 2009 was 288.5 milimeters, significantly more than only 79.6 milimeters during the first 30 days of May 2010.

Average monthly rainfall monitored at monitoring station at Phuket Town was 282.6 milimeters for a 30-years period between 1971 and 2000. The same measurement from monitoring station at Phuket Airport was 291.4 milimeters. Latest year-to-date rainfall amount recorded at Phuket Town’s monitoring station was 386.4 milimeters and at Airport’s monitoring station was 520.9 milimeters.

Accorning to 8 minitoring stations in the areas along Andaman Coast, the provice of Satun had the highest rain with 735.4 milimeters whilst Koh Lanta of Krabi recoded so much lower at only 186.0 milimeters. Anonymous source at the monitoring station of Phuket Town suggested that the phenomena was likely the result of El Nino effect.

“Bangawad Reservoid of Kathu which had a deposit of 2.8 million cubic at the end of April was only having 1.9 million cubic left at the end of May”, Weerawat Aungsupanith, Director of Phuket Provincial Irrigation Office said. “Only enough for one more month without replenishment”, he continued.

Fortunately an official at Phuket Agricultural Extension Office said the impact to agriculture remained minimum as farmers managed to get sufficient water to protect their crops, mostly from tin mining ponds. However a construction to increase water reservoir capacity is underway in Rassada, next to Rajabaht Phuket University, and off Soi Phanieng.

The two month rally turned into one of the country’s worst political violence when the armed force cleared protesters from the buildings and the streets in the capital. Thai Hotels Association reported hotel occupancy plunged down to below 40% whilst the whole tourism industry of Thailand lost at least 3 billion dollars.

At least 50 countries issued travel warning, advising their citizen to avoid visiting Bangkok, some of them also included the whole country. Residents of Phuket whose live heavily dependent to tourism industry say that situation may affect even worse than the tsunami back in 2004.

“The situation is now graver than during the tsunami”, a resort sales director, Vivian Ng, told reporter as published by Bloomberg.  ”With the tsunami, the world knows it’s just a one-off, now there are concerns about security and safety”, she continued. Her hotel, Anantra Resort, which once hosted Hollywood start Kevin Spacey and British supermodel Kate Moss is now counting business lost every single day.

Running 83 villas each with private pool, Anantara recorded room 70 cancellations between April and August. The management advised employees to take holidays and turn lights and air-conditionings off to control costs.

Bloomberg reported that Kongkrit Hiranyakit, President of Tourism Council of Thailand, predicted that the country is loosing at least 20% of its annual tourism revenue down to 480 billion baht. “It is the worst impact in the 50 years history of Thailand tourism industry, and may take a long while to resume confidence”, he said.

Elephant safari at Amazing Bukit Safari looses its customers, leaving staffs sleeping in hammocks or watch TV. “What is happening it Bangkok frightens tourists to come to Thailand”, Oi Supawadee, a supervisor at the facility said. “Since April we only get an average if 20 rides a day, far below 60 rides a day in normal condition”.

Decreasing business immediately affect prices as well. A Singapore-based online travel agent, gogo.com, offers JW Marriot resort of Mai Khao at $42 a night for a one week stay, a quarter of normal price. Tour booking outlets along Patong beach cut their price down by 50%. “In some days I do not get even one single booking”, an owner of tour and travel outlet. “Sometimes I can not sleep as my income is far below bills I have to pay”.

Political unrest in Bangkok has killed 70 in the last six weeks or so. “Travel warnings against Thailand affect the whole country, not only Bangkok”, Phuket Tourism Association’s President Somboon Chirayus said. “Some insurance companies do not cover travel risks when travel advisory in place. We also worry about future bookings”, he continued.

Fitch Ratings also predict negative impact to the whole Thailand’s 261 billion dollars economy, Southeast Asia’s second largest after Indonesia. Drop in tourism which represented 6.5% of Thailand’s economy has contributed to 0.6% economic contraction after the 2004 tsunami.

“This is like wounding yourself by shooting your own foot not only once but twice or even three times”, and Australian residing in Phuket for the last 19 years, Wolfgang Meusburger told reporter. “This time the damage is so great that costs a lot more than just mending a broken thing”, he added.

“The latest situation is another blow to Thailand’s recovering tourism industry”, said Robert Bailey, president of Singapore-based Asia’s largest travel agency, Abacus International. Confidence to Thailand’s government in maintaining the country’s stability is seriously damaged.

There are still some who believes that Phuket’s beaches are too far away from Bangkok streets to even feel the fear. “We do not think it is going to impact us as the problem is isolated somewhere far away”, said an expatriate residence of Phuket. “Whilst we follow news, we are not too concern”, he continued.

Thai Airways confirmed that the company has no plan to suspend to daily direct flight between Phuket and Tokyo as it even becomes a better preference compare to flights stopping over in Bangkok. Starting May 25th, Japan’s second largest travel company HIS suspend offering packages that include Bangkok.

Despite of current downturn, confidence remains. “Phuket tourism does incredible bouce back”, said Bill Barnett, managing director of C9 Hotelworks Ltd., a Phuket-based asset management and hospitality company. “We saw it after SARS, we saw it after the tsunami. It roars back.”

In the middle of uncertainty in Phuket tourism entering the low season under the shadow of political unrest in Bangkok, Phuket is getting a little boost by additional long haul direct flight from Eourope by German low-fare airliner, Air Berlin. The additional weekly service will be flown by an Airbus A330-200 from Berlin-Tegel airport. More on this at Phuket New Flights.

An agreement to settle dispute which involved taxi and limo drivers operating at Phuket International Airport was drawn after a two hours talks. Attending the talks at the airport were senior representatives of Airports of Thailand, Tourism Authority of Thailand, and Phuket Governor Wichai Praisa-ngob.

Fleets at the airport will get additional 60 licenses, 30 of which going to each major operator. Airport operating company, Airports of Thailand, also put a consession to help taxi and limo drivers by waiving annual 10% increase of airport rental fee to be paid by the drivers.

The talks was held after protest made by 100 airport taxi drivers by parking their cars arould the Provincial Hall in Phuket Town against approval of more license. In response, Governor Wichai thoroughly examined taxi structure at the airport. Meanwhlile Airport of Thailand was criticized for creating high cost for the customers by charging taxis high rental charges.

However concern about high cost transportation is not only limited to the airport but throughout the whole island as well. Recent report exposed presence of 4000 illegal taxis whilst village zoning caused tuktuk fare in Phuket was 10 times more expensive than Bangkok. To overcome the problem the government will likely start a trial period of metered tuktuk and respond to demand for low-cost bus.

Residents gathered to support construction of tunnel drilled across Patong Hill to connect Patong to Phuket Town and other parts of the island including the International Airport. Advocates believe that the current route is dangerous whilst opponents believe that collision in the tunnel will be even more dangerous.

More on this at Patong Residents Demanded for The Tunnel.