Since reopening to international vaccinated travellers on 1 July, Phuket has rolled out aggressive strategies to capture more tourists, including a medical co-living project and the latest initiative: sports tourism.
Laguna Phuket partnered with the Sports Authority of Thailand, Phuket, the Thailand Volleyball Association, Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) and PPTV HD to launch the first international sporting tournament since the start of the pandemic — the AVC 2021 Asian Senior Beach Volleyball Championships.
Sporting teams comprising athletes, coaches and officials from 10 countries in Asia Pacific including Australia, New Zealand, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Philippines, Japan, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Iran joined the event from 23 – 27 November.
This was followed by the FIVB Beach Volleyball U19 World Championship from 6 – 11 December 2021, and next up: the FIVB Beach Volleyball U20 World Championship from 14 – 16 December 2021. By the end of this week, Phuket would have welcomed competitors from across five continents representing 48 countries from these two events.
Before 2021 wraps up, Phuket will also host the Asian Tour golf tournaments, and come 2022, the Laguna Phuket Marathon and Laguna Phuket Triathlon are also set to make a return.
Said Ravi Chandran, CEO of Laguna Resorts & Hotels, “Phuket is a global hub for sports tourism. With the island’s outstanding infrastructure, year-round outdoor climate and world-class hospitality, we have proved that we can stage any size of event, from small groups of active travellers to major international competitions.
“I am confident that this will help to kickstart the recovery of Phuket’s tourism industry in 2022 and beyond.”