Thailand Rising
I have a whole chapter in Have the Whole Boat titled “Emerging Destinations.” These are places where you can find a handful of charter yachts that are starting to poke around, but where a true yacht charter infrastructure of marinas and services has yet to evolve.
Thailand is one of the destinations I explain as emerging, meaning that a few crewed charter yachts are becoming available there each year. I think that number may be on the cusp of dramatically increasing, an opinion that solidified for me thanks to a press release in my in-box this morning.
The Village Coconut Island, which is northeast of Phuket in Phang-Nga Bay, has announced a partnership with Sunsail, one of the world’s largest bareboat and skippered yacht charter companies. It looks like they’re creating another Sunsail Club, which is a proper resort that includes beefed-up marina operations for offering charter vacations in addition to land-based ones. Three Sunsail Clubs already exist in Antigua, Greece and Turkey. Coconut Island will be the first to border the Indian Ocean.
In my experience, a marina like this improves services for yachts of most sizes, including larger, fully crewed ones–which means more of them are likely to visit. It won’t be a tidal wave of yachts at first, but keep your eye on Thailand over the next few years as a true up-and-coming charter hotspot.
And let’s all hope that the development that goes on there remains boater-friendly, which means far away from any existing or future cruise ship docks!