How Phuket is tapping surf tourism market by carving a niche as a Southeast Asian destination for beginners
- Phuket is better known for its nightlife, but the Thai island is keen to get in on surf tourism that brings money to places like Indonesia and the Philippines
- Surf festivals form part of this effort, and while Phuket won’t soon rival Bali as a surf mecca, it has attributes that make it a great place to learn the sport
From the porch of my villa, I watch a swell roll in from the Andaman Sea and crash on the western shore of Phuket.
It is a dark, rainy, windy day on this Thai island. Which makes me wonder whether I’d be wasting my time venturing down the west coast, to Kamala Beach, which is scheduled to host the latest stage in the Amazing Phuket Plus Surf Festival.
Billed as the island’s biggest-ever surfing event, the festival is sponsored by the Tourism Authority of Thailand and has featured five separate three-day competitions throughout June and July: in Khao Lak, then Kata, Kamala, Patong and Surin. Each event has male and female competitions in both longboard and shortboard disciplines.
As my taxi rounds the northern headland of Kamala, and its white sand beach unfurls to the right, I spot only two surfers in the sea. Their shaky technique suggests they are not competitors. I stroll along the beach in light rain until I come across surf rental company Kamala Water Sport.
“It’s been cancelled, bad weather,” one of its instructors, Max Bunyarit, tells me about the opening day of the Kamala event.
