Phuket’s tourism pioneer, Wichit Na-Ranong, has attacked "the uncontrollable greed of developers on the island", claiming it has run out of time to solve pollution, crime and a decline in genuine hospitality.
His interview with the Thai-language magazine, Saphan Hin, was reported in detail in Phuket News.
Mr Wichit, whose family owns the Pearl Hotel in Phuket Town and the Indigo Pearl Resort, said that the lack of tourism planning had caused the island to spiral "out of control".
The result, he said, is a deteriorating environment: dirty areas, airport congestion, traffic jams, and a negative impact on local people.
"Tourists want to come to Phuket, which has resulted in more and more business people investing in Phuket, establishing hotels, restaurants and other businesses.
"But people’s greed has grown, which has resulted in their good-heartedness shrivelling and criminality growing."
He warned that Phuket could no longer be counted as a world-class tourism destination because of a slide in the overall quality of the destination.
Central to fixing Phuket’s woes, he said in the interview, "is cleaning up the messiness along the island’s beaches".
"Phuket’s beaches are the core products. There are many shops, bars, food stalls, restaurants, sun beds, discotheques and others businesses along the beach that make a mess out of the core product itself."
Mr Wichit was the first president of the Tourism Council of Thailand and the founding president of the Phuket Tourist Association. He was previously on the board of Thai Airways International and Tourism Authority of Thailand.
