Short answer. Phuket received 14.25 M visitors in 2025 according to Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism and Sports — 75.4% of them foreign — against 14.58 M in 2019 and a record 14.51 M in 2024. The pandemic took the count down to 1.24 M in 2021 and the recovery took three years. The market changed shape on the way: China, which sent 3,118,901 hotel guests in 2019 and was the largest market by a distance, sent 1,285,894 in 2025; Russia went from 909,261 to 1,748,249 and became the leading market; India went from 225,535 to 1,029,588 (+356.5%). The airport tells the same story in its own units — 17.47 M passengers in 2025, with international traffic at 101.6% of 2019 — and the two counts are not the same thing, which this guide explains. Every figure here is interpolated from the datasets on the statistics hub; nothing is typed in.
Three ways to count a tourist
Phuket has three official numbers that get quoted as “tourists”, and most confusion about the island’s tourism comes from mixing them.
Visitors (MOTS) — people who visited Phuket province, split into tourists (at least one overnight stay) and excursionists (a day trip), and into Thai and foreign. Counted once per visit, from surveys and accommodation returns. This is the headline series: 14,248,853 in 2025, of whom 13,042,914 stayed overnight.
Guest arrivals (MOTS) — check-ins at accommodation establishments in the province, by nationality. A guest who stays in two hotels counts twice; a visitor staying with friends counts zero. This is the only series with a nationality breakdown, so every “Russia is the top market” claim is a guest-arrivals claim: 12,657,079 check-ins in 2025, 10,085,407 of them foreign.
Passengers (AOT) — everyone boarding or leaving a plane at Phuket International Airport, international and domestic, including direct transit. A tourist who flies in and out is two passengers; a resident’s weekend in Bangkok is two more. 17,474,051 in 2025, of which 10,837,291 international.
The three move together but are not interchangeable: 14.25 M visitors, 12.66 M guest arrivals and 17.47 M passengers for the same year. When a headline says Phuket had “seventeen million tourists”, it is quoting passengers.
2012–2019: growth to a record
The MOTS series on this site starts in 2012, when Phuket counted 8.83 M visitors, and climbs almost every year to 2019: 11.96 M in 2013, 13.20 M in 2015, 14.01 M in 2017, 14.58 M in 2019. Foreign visitors were 72.7% of the 2019 total; Thai visitors, 3.98 M of them, are the part of the market that outsiders forget and that carried the island through 2020 and 2021.
The engine of that decade was China. Chinese hotel guest arrivals went from 1,139,273 in 2013 to 3,118,901 in 2019 — 32.2% of all foreign guest arrivals, more than the next three markets combined. Group tours, charter flights from second-tier cities, the Chinese-language signage in Patong’s malls and the tour-boat fleet at Chalong pier all date from those years. Russia was the second market for most of the decade (909,261 in 2019), then a European and Australian tier — Germany 638,609, Australia 482,320, the United Kingdom 337,691 — and India well down the table at 225,535.
Room supply grew with demand: the province had 82,962 registered rooms in 2015 and 92,667 in 2019, and occupancy held around three-quarters — 75.3% in 2019 — which is why the island built and built.
2020–2022: the collapse
The 2020 figure is 4.03 M visitors, most of them in the first quarter before the borders shut; foreign guest arrivals fell to 1,818,867 for the year. 2021 was the floor: 1.24 M visitors, 262,303 foreign guest arrivals in twelve months — fewer foreign check-ins in a year than the island used to see in a fortnight — and occupancy of 6.7%. The “Phuket Sandbox” of July 2021, which let vaccinated visitors into the island before the rest of the country, shows in the monthly series as a trickle, and mattered more as a signal than as a number.
The airport series makes the depth visible: 5,429,709 passengers in 2020, 1,789,838 in 2021 — 9.9% of the 2019 traffic — and only 287,481 of them international. Thai domestic travel kept the terminal open.
2022 was the half-way year: 5.77 M visitors, occupancy 42.0%. The markets that came back first are the ones that shape the island now. India, which had reopened flights early and whose travellers did not need group-tour infrastructure, sent 526,265 guest arrivals in 2022 — already more than double its 2019 figure while China, still closed, sent 38,453. Russia sent 336,492.
2023–2025: recovery, with a different shape
2023 brought 12.21 M visitors and 2024 a record 14.51 M, above 2019; 2025 settled at 14.25 M, a small step back. Occupancy in 2025 was 76.3%, spend per visitor per day 8,563 THB against 7,717 THB in 2019, average length of stay 4.9 days against 4.1, and tourism revenue 555,428 million THB against 442,891 million THB in 2019. Fewer people than the peak, staying longer and spending more per day — the composition of that change is the story.
China: from a third of the market to an eighth
Chinese guest arrivals recovered to 1,238,016 in 2023 and 1,624,723 in 2024, then fell back to 1,285,894 in 2025 (−20.9% year on year). That is 12.8% of foreign guest arrivals against 32.2% in 2019. The group-tour model that built the numbers did not return at scale; the Chinese visitor of 2025 is more often independent, younger, and in a different kind of hotel. China’s seasonality is also unusual: its peak month in 2025 was July — the summer holidays — which is one reason Phuket’s low season is not empty.
Russia: the new leading market
Russian guest arrivals rose from 909,261 in 2019 to 1,544,507 in 2023 and 1,748,249 in 2025 (+92.3% against 2019), making Russia the largest foreign market at 17.3%. The pattern is a winter one — peak January, trough October — and a long-stay one: Rawai, Nai Harn and Bang Tao’s villa estates have Russian-speaking communities with their own schools, clinics and shops, described in the area guide. The Russia hub covers the flights and the 30-day bilateral visa arrangement.
India: four times 2019
India is the growth story of the decade. From 143,306 in 2013 and 225,535 in 2019 to 1,045,892 in 2024 and 1,029,588 in 2025 — +356.5% on 2019, rank 3, 10.2% of foreign guest arrivals. Nonstop flights from five cities, visa-free entry since mid-2024 (30 days from 15 September 2026, per the visa guide), a wedding and corporate-group business that Goa and Bali have not matched, and a hundred Indian and vegetarian kitchens in Patong and Kata. India’s peak month is December, its quietest August; the May–June school holidays give it a second bump in the low season.
The United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Korea, Malaysia
The British market more than doubled on its 2019 figure — 337,691 then, 762,815 in 2025 (+125.9%) — helped by nonstop flights from London; it peaks in November. Australia sent 628,551 (+30.3% on 2019), peaking in January around its school holidays. Germany, at 571,661, has not regained its 2019 level (−10.5%); it peaks in February. Korea’s series is volatile — 637,540 in 2023, 215,504 in 2025 — and Malaysia, the closest neighbour, sent 425,784, peaking in December. Each has a page under arrivals by market and, where a country hub exists, a hub with flights, visa and a budget in its own currency.
The top ten of 2025, by share of foreign guest arrivals: Russia (17.3%), China (12.8%), India (10.2%), United Kingdom (7.6%), Australia (6.2%), Germany (5.7%), France (4.3%), Malaysia (4.2%), Middle East (3.4%), USA (2.5%).
Seasonality: who comes when
The island’s calendar is the sum of its markets’ calendars. Foreign guest arrivals in 2025 peaked at 1,026,381 in December and bottomed at 692,365 in June; the provincial visitor count went from 1,330,782 in January to 1,046,614 in June and back to 1,139,408 in July. Occupancy followed: 86.4% in January, 66.8% in June, 84.1% in December.
Behind the total, the markets layer:
- Winter markets (peak November–February): Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, Kazakhstan — the escape from a northern or a southern-hemisphere-school-holiday winter. These drive the high season and the high-season hotel rates.
- Summer markets (peak June–August): China, the Middle East, and a second Indian wave in May–June. These fill Patong and Kata in the monsoon.
- Year-round markets: India across both peaks, Malaysia on long weekends and school holidays, Thai visitors on every public holiday and throughout the low season.
The monthly arrivals by nationality for the last three full years are tabulated on the arrivals page; the climate side of the same calendar is in the monsoon guide.
The airport’s own count
Airports of Thailand publishes a different series with a different logic: passengers and aircraft movements at HKT, by month, from 2018 in this site’s dataset. It is the fastest indicator — monthly, weeks after the fact — and the one the airlines plan against.
| Year | Passengers | International | Domestic | Of 2019 total | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 18.22 M | 10.40 M | 7.82 M | 100.6% | 118,280 |
| 2019 | 18.12 M | 10.67 M | 7.45 M | 100.0% | 115,576 |
| 2020 | 5.43 M | 2.33 M | 3.10 M | 30.0% | 38,850 |
| 2021 | 1.79 M | 0.29 M | 1.50 M | 9.9% | 18,524 |
| 2022 | 7.81 M | 3.16 M | 4.66 M | 43.1% | 57,469 |
| 2023 | 13.98 M | 7.72 M | 6.26 M | 77.2% | 87,304 |
| 2024 | 17.22 M | 10.57 M | 6.64 M | 95.0% | 103,675 |
| 2025 | 17.47 M | 10.84 M | 6.64 M | 96.4% | 106,585 |
Two things the airport series shows that the visitor series cannot. First, the recovery is an international recovery: international passengers in 2025 were 101.6% of 2019, domestic 89.1% — the Thai domestic market that carried the airport through 2021 has not returned to its 2019 level, and the international share of traffic rose to 62.0%. Second, the monthly peak: January 2025 (2.00 M) is the only month in the series above two million passengers, and the 2025 low, September 2025 (1.02 M), is the mirror of the June–September dip in the visitor count. Flights recovered more slowly than passengers (92.2% of 2019 movements) because aircraft got bigger and fuller. The full series is on the airport page.
What the numbers do not say
The visitor survey is a provincial average. Phuket’s tourism is concentrated: Patong alone has more rooms than the north of the island combined, and a provincial occupancy of 76.3% can mean a full Patong and a half-empty Mai Khao, or the reverse in a Chinese summer. Nationality figures are hotel check-ins, so the long-stay communities — the Russian and French speakers of Rawai, the families in Bang Tao’s villas — are under-counted, because a villa rented by the month is not a hotel return. Spend per day is a survey average across honeymooners and backpackers and says nothing about what a particular week costs; the price index exists to answer that with baskets and medians instead, and the week-budget guide applies it.
The monthly MOTS figures for the most recent months are preliminary and are revised when the annual file is published; the hub marks them. AOT’s monthly reports lag by a month or two. Both datasets, with every source file, licence and retrieval date, are listed on the sources page and downloadable as JSON and CSV from the hub under CC BY 4.0 — which is the point of a page like this: the numbers are checkable, and they will be updated in place when the next file arrives.
FAQ
How many tourists visit Phuket a year?
The Ministry of Tourism and Sports counted 14,248,853 visitors in Phuket in 2025 (14.25 M), of whom 75.4% were foreign. The record year in the series is 2024 with 14.51 M; 2019, the pre-COVID reference, had 14.58 M. A visitor is a tourist (at least one night) or an excursionist (a day trip), Thai or foreign.
Which country sends the most tourists to Phuket?
Russia, by hotel guest arrivals: 1,748,249 in 2025, 17.3% of all foreign guest arrivals. China was the leading market before COVID with 3,118,901 in 2019 and is now second at 1,285,894; India is third at 1,029,588. The top three in 2025: Russia (17.3%), China (12.8%), India (10.2%).
How much did Indian tourism to Phuket grow?
From 225,535 hotel guest arrivals in 2019 to 1,029,588 in 2025, a change of +356.5% — the fastest growth of any large market. India ranked 3 among foreign markets in 2025, up from a mid-table position before COVID.
What is the difference between visitors and airport passengers?
Different things counted by different bodies. MOTS visitors are people who visited the province, each counted once per visit; AOT passengers are every person boarding or leaving a plane at Phuket airport, so a return trip is two passengers and a transit counts too. In 2025 MOTS counted 14.25 M visitors and AOT 17.47 M passengers; hotel guest arrivals (check-ins) are a third measure, 12.66 M in the same year.
What is Phuket’s hotel occupancy rate?
76.3% for 2025 across the province’s registered rooms, against 75.3% in 2019 and 6.7% in 2021, the worst year of the pandemic. Monthly figures swing from 86.4% in January 2025 to 66.8% in June.
How much do tourists spend per day in Phuket?
MOTS puts average spend per visitor per day at 8,563 THB in 2025, up from 7,717 THB in 2019, with an average stay of 4.9 days. That is the survey average across all visitors and purposes; the Phuket Travel Price Index prices specific baskets instead — a mid-range day in Patong is $39 per person in the September 2026 revision.