Phuket puts Thailand on the cruise map

Star Flyer, a five-masted, steel-hulled cruise ship with a capacity for 170 passengers, was sailing from Phuket to Singapore when the tsunami struck in December 26, 2004. Luckily for the cruiser and the paying passengers on board, the ship was anchored in Pangkor, Malaysia, when the tidal wave hit Thailand's Andaman coastline, killing 5,400 people.

There was an impact, however. "The tsunami effect was immediate as many passengers cancelled for the cruises planned the following months," recalled Christoph Rott, international sales and marketing manager for Star Clippers, the Miami-based cruise company that operates Star Flyer and two other clipper ships - Star Clipper and Royal Clipper - all inspired by the "Pruessen," the world's first five-master built in 1902 (it sank in 1910 after a collision).
But by 2007, Star Flyer's luxury passenger load was already back to pre-tsunami figures and the company is expecting an increase this year.
Star Clippers was one of the first cruise ships to pioneer Thai waters in the Andaman Sea, where it has been operating 14-day trips on the Star Flyer between Singapore and Phuket at least four times a year since 1996.
Passengers fly in to either Phuket or Singapore, where they then board the ship, paying 1,900 dollars to visit Langawi, Penang, Malacca and a host of smaller islands and dive spots between the two ports.
"The Andaman Sea fits perfect to our product: small ports, islands, great watersport," said Rott.
Of course, not all cruise operators are as pleased with small ports. The resort island attracted 199,690 cruise tourists in 2006, of whom some 142,636 disembarked at Phuket Port, a medium-sized facility that cannot handle large cruise ships.
"Tourist arrivals on cruise ships increased by 20 per cent last year, but the traffic is limited by our lack of port facilities for the bigger boats," said Suwalai Pinpradab, director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand Phuket office.
The Thai government has been promoting Phuket as a marina hub for yachts (there are already three marinas and three more planned) but has not allocated a budget to boost the island's port facilities to cope with the growing cruise traffic.
Consequently, the resort can only handle medium-sized cruise ships that can either dock at Phuket Port or anchor offshore of Patong one of the island's most popular beaches with a deep bay.
Even so, demand is on the rise. The medium-sized Deutschland ship, for instance, will start offering cruises that embark at Phuket this year, also bringing in business for the island's international airport and hotels in the process, according to the TAT.
Thailand only offers only one port specializing in cruise ships, and it isn't in popular Phuket but at Laem Chabang, an industrial port situated on the eastern seaboard between Bangkok and Pattaya.
The Laem Chabang Cruise Centre was established in 2002 as a port of call for cruise ships visiting the Gulf of Thailand, a fairly shallow body of water that is not renowned for its charms.
In 2006, the last year for which figures were available, only 19 cruise ships docked at Laem Chabang, with 4,336 passengers disembarking.
"Usually the passengers go to either Pattaya or Bangkok where they will spend one night," said Sukawat Intong, terminal manager at the cruise port.
The port can only handle ships up to 320 metres in length. "If we wanted to develop Laem Chambang into a cruise hub we'd need a much bigger port to handle the bigger ships," said Sukawat. "The Queen Mary II, for instance, has expressed an interest in docking in Thailand in 2009, but it is 345 metres long so we have no port that can handle her," he added.

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