Quick answer: occupancy is the hidden lever behind rental income, two units at the same nightly rate produce very different annual revenue if one sits empty through the monsoon, and it is also the figure Thailand does not collect. No public body records occupancy for privately owned Phuket units, so the area ranking this page was built to deliver cannot be made, and the bands it used to give for Patong, Bang Tao, Kamala, Kata, Karon and Surin have been withdrawn along with the two gross-yield figures beneath them.
What this page does instead: sets out what actually moves a calendar, which is structural and needs no percentage; gives the price side by area from MORE Group’s own records; and tells you the one document that answers the question for a specific building. Always compare a full year, month by month, rather than January alone.
Related: Seasonal occupancy explained · What affects occupancy · Rental yield guide
What does “occupancy” actually mean in Phuket?
| Metric | Definition | Investor use |
|---|---|---|
| Gross occupancy | May include owner blocks | Often inflated |
| Sellable occupancy | Excludes owner stays | Better for underwriting |
| Peak occupancy | High-season weeks only | Misleading if annualised |
| Annual occupancy | Full 12-month blend | Correct planning basis |
If comparing areas, insist on annualised sellable occupancy and clarify whether the unit is management-managed or owner-operated, operational ceilings differ.
There are no area occupancy bands, and here is what there is instead
A seven-row table stood here giving each area a peak-season and an annual occupancy band. Fourteen figures, none collected by anyone. Thailand keeps no letting register, so occupancy for privately owned units exists only inside the managing companies’ own books, building by building. The table has been withdrawn rather than narrowed.
What the records do hold is the price side and the guest each area reaches, which is the same trade the old table was gesturing at, without the invented precision:
| Area | Priced apartments | Median price | THB per sqm | Median size | Who the guest or tenant is |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patong | 202 | 11,070,000 | 234,561 | 53 sqm | The broadest and most price-sensitive pool on the island: groups, last-minute bookers, budget and mid-market |
| Bang Tao | 4,589 | 7,017,150 | 161,000 | 46 sqm | Families, golf, repeat resort visitors, and the most competing stock, by a wide margin |
| Kamala | 699 | 7,723,650 | 156,200 | 47 sqm | Boutique families and European repeat visitors, in a market a seventh of Bang Tao’s size |
| Surin | 108 | 9,150,000 | 155,000 | 60 sqm | A narrow, high-spending segment reached by targeted marketing rather than by volume |
| Kata | 1,048 | 6,273,725 | 152,000 | 45 sqm | Family beach corridor, with school-holiday and European seasonality |
| Rawai | 1,291 | 6,818,000 | 145,000 | 51 sqm | Residents and long-stay expats as well as visitors, the only column here with two tenant pools |
| Mai Khao | 39 | 10,000,000 | 145,313 | 75 sqm | Thin: 39 priced units in one scheme, and resort hotels take most of the guests |
Read the size column beside the guest column. Rawai at 51 square metres and Surin at 60 clear the roughly 35 sqm line at which a twelve-month tenant becomes available; Patong’s stock at 53 does too but is priced for a guest rather than a resident. That is the closest thing to an occupancy argument the data supports: a unit with two possible tenants has a floor under its calendar that a unit with one does not.
Why is Patong the peak-season case, and what is the trade-off?
Whether Patong leads on occupancy is not measurable (no area’s occupancy is) but the mechanism people are pointing at when they say so is real and needs no figure. Patong draws budget and mid-market travellers, groups, short bookers and last-minute arrivals, so there is almost always somebody willing to take a room at some price. A deep, price-sensitive pool is what fills a calendar; it is also what caps what the calendar earns per night. The trade-off is structural, and it runs in the opposite direction on the west coast.
The part the records add is that Patong is not cheap: 234,561 THB per square metre against Bang Tao’s 161,000, across 202 priced units in two schemes, neither built. You are paying the island’s highest metre rate for access to that guest pool.
Trade-offs: noise sensitivity, intense competition, higher turnover costs, and review volatility if housekeeping slips. Occupancy is not “free” because the area is busy, you pay in operational friction.
Buyer scenario, maximum annual nights sold: Patong or Kata corridor with professional STR management, dynamic pricing, and realistic maintenance budget.
Buyer scenario, price over volume: Surin, on 108 priced apartments at a 60 sqm median, the largest median unit of the areas above. The trade is real and is not measurable in either direction: a narrow, high-spending guest pool reached by targeted marketing rather than by platform volume. Whether that nets more than a fuller calendar at a lower rate is exactly what nobody can tell you in advance.
How do Bang Tao, Kamala, and Kata compare for family demand?
Kamala behaves as the balanced neighbour: less dense than the Patong core, still on the tourist coast. What buyers are choosing when they choose it is the address and the quiet rather than a measured calendar: the occupancy claim this line used to make has been withdrawn. On the records it is the scarcer market of the two, 699 priced apartments against Bang Tao’s 4,589, at a slightly lower metre rate.
Kata and Karon draw families on school holidays and European visitors through the winter, which is a repeat pattern rather than a measured stability: the occupancy claim has been withdrawn. Listing quality matters for a reason that needs no data: accurate beach walking times, honest noise notes and real photographs of the pool are what a guest filters and compares on, and a listing that overstates any of them collects the review that follows.
What about Surin, Rawai, and Mai Khao?
Rawai / Nai Harn: Quieter mass-tourism footprint; attracts long-stay guests, retirees, and nomads. Strategies combining short- and mid-term demand can smooth low season.
Mai Khao: Swings with seasonal beach use and flight patterns. Airport proximity helps some segments but does not create Patong-style density.
How does low season change occupancy by area?
| Season | Typical pattern | Investor takeaway |
|---|---|---|
| Nov-Dec | Ramp-up | Avoid overpricing early |
| Jan-Mar | Peak occupancy | Protect housekeeping quality |
| Apr | Mixed (Songkran) | Watch holiday pricing |
| May-Oct | Lower occupancy | Promotions, longer stays |
Full seasonal framework: Seasonal occupancy in Phuket.
What drives spread between strong and average occupancy in the same building?
| Driver | Impact |
|---|---|
| Review score 4.7+ | Platforms rank on it, though none publishes how much. The score itself is public |
| Fast host messaging | Fewer abandoned bookings |
| Accurate photos | Lower mismatch refunds |
| Dynamic pricing | Prices move with demand instead of sitting on a static card. Visible on the building’s own calendar |
| AC / WiFi reliability | Fewer complaint-driven gaps |
How should you choose a location based on occupancy reality?
Price over volume: Surin is rational if you can market to its segment and the guest experience matches the price. Which of the two strategies nets more is not establishable from any published source.
Value entry priority: Rawai from ~$96K works when rental strategy matches tenant pool, not when pretending it is Patong.
Translate occupancy into yield via Phuket rental yield guide and Airbnb guide 2026. Area selection context: Best areas to buy.
How do you convert occupancy and ADR into annual revenue?
Annual gross ≈ ADR × occupied nights
Where occupied nights = available nights × occupancy rate.
The three worked rows that stood here paired a nightly rate with an occupancy for each area and multiplied out an annual gross. Both inputs in every row were invented, so all three totals were too, and they have been withdrawn.
The formula is still the right one and you should run it, with your own inputs:
| What you need | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Achieved nightly rate, by month | An operator’s statements for a comparable unit in the specific building |
| Occupied nights, by month | The same statements. Not an annual average, which hides the monsoon |
| Available nights | 365 less the weeks you intend to use yourself, which only you know |
Change the occupancy input by ten points and the answer moves by thousands, which is the whole reason no page should be handing you one. It is also why an area band would not have helped even if it existed: your building’s calendar is not the area’s.
How does new supply in an area affect future occupancy?
Before buying, check the approved projects pipeline within 3 km. Occupancy is a function of supply and demand at micro level, not island brand alone, and the competing units that will pull your occupancy down in three years are already under construction today. Our guide to spotting an oversupplied project sets out the seven checks that surface this before you commit.
What data should you request from sellers or managers?
Ask for the same five things every time, in writing, covering the last twelve months and ideally the twenty-four before that.
Month-by-month occupancy for two comparable units in the same building, not a building average and not a portfolio average. A building average blends a refurbished top-floor sea-view unit with a tired ground-floor one, and you are buying one of them, not the blend.
Month-by-month average nightly rate for those same units, gross, before any deduction. Occupancy without rate is meaningless: a unit can be full every night at a rate that loses money.
The owner statements themselves, not a summary. You are looking for what was deducted and whether the deductions were the ones the management agreement describes. OTA commission, linen, consumables, credit card fees and deep cleans are where the gap between gross and net actually lives.
The number of owner-blocked nights in each month, so you can tell whether low occupancy reflects weak demand or an owner who used the unit.
The listing history on the booking platforms: how long it has been live, the review count and the rating. A unit that has been listed for three years with eleven reviews was not achieving the occupancy anyone is claiming for it.
If the seller or manager cannot provide these, assume you are underwriting marketing fiction. Reputable managers keep this data as a matter of course and produce it on request; the ones who will not produce it are telling you something.
Area selection decision tree
Work down this list and stop at the first branch that matches. Most buyers have one dominant constraint and several preferences, and the constraint should decide the area.
- Do you need the highest number of nights sold, and can you tolerate operational friction? Patong or the Kata and Karon corridor, with professional short-let management and a realistic maintenance budget.
- Do you want a high rate from few guests rather than a modest rate from many? Surin, with a selective guest mix, accepting that neither side of that trade has a published figure.
- Will you use the property yourself for several weeks a year? Kamala or Bang Tao, where the calendar is broad enough across the year that your own weeks need not come out of the peak, a judgement about the guest mix rather than a measured occupancy, since none is published.
- Is the entry price your binding constraint? Rawai or Nai Harn, understanding that the rent does not fall as far as the price does but nor does it hold up as well as the yield argument implies.
- Do you need to be able to sell within five years? Bang Tao, on liquidity grounds, whatever the occupancy comparison says.
- None of the above dominates? Kamala is the reasonable default, because it gives up less on each dimension than any of the others.
Match the branch before you compare yield quotes from agents, because an agent quoting 9% in Rawai and an agent quoting 7% in Bang Tao are not offering you the same product and the percentages are not comparable.
Match tree branch before comparing yield quotes from agents.
Occupancy stress test every investor should run
Example: agent quotes 80% annual; underwrite 70%. At $120 ADR and 335 available nights, that is $28,140 gross versus $32,160 at 80%, a $4,020 gap that separates profit from disappointment.
Why annual occupancy beats peak-season bragging
Peak-season occupancy is the number sales teams quote because it is the number that flatters. Almost everything on this island fills in February. What separates a good investment from an average one is what happens in June and September, when the guest pool thins and only the listings that are well priced, well photographed and well reviewed keep selling. A unit at 90% in high season and 35% in low season and a unit at 82% and 62% can look similar in a brochure and produce very different annual revenue.
Underwrite on the annual figure, and underwrite it below what you were quoted. If an agent says 80%, model 70% and see whether the purchase still works. If it only works at the agent’s number, you are relying on someone else’s optimism to service your own capital.
Building age and renovation cycle also move occupancy within the same area pin: freshly renovated 1BR in ageing Patong tower can outperform tired unit next door at identical map coordinates. Area averages are starting points; unit-level execution determines whether you capture the average or fall below it.
When comparing Kamala boutique stock against Bang Tao resort-scale inventory, ask whether your operator can fill shoulder months without racing to bottom on ADR. Kamala often rewards premium positioning; Bang Tao rewards volume throughput, different management playbooks for ostensibly similar occupancy percentages.
Occupancy research should finish with written underwriting memo: area choice, assumed annual occupancy, ADR range, fee stack, and stress test. If memo cannot be explained in five minutes to a sceptical partner, purchase is not ready, regardless of how exciting the showroom visit felt.
Strong areas do not rescue weak operators. Weak areas sometimes reward exceptional operators. Your management choice is the second-largest occupancy lever after micro-location pin accuracy, budget professional management before buying cheaper area expecting automatic nights sold.
Before offer, ask agent for three competing listings in same building with stated occupancy, if none provided, you are flying blind in the most important variable for rental thesis.
Repeat the exercise after purchase quarterly, occupancy drift in your building is early warning for pricing or capex problems before they appear in annual P and L summary. Compare notes with owners in same juristic person; informal data often surfaces before official reports. Document everything in your underwriting file for future refinance or resale.
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Frequently Asked Questions
No single area wins every month. Patong often leads peak tourism density; Bang Tao and Karon/Kata are strong across family segments. Always compare annualised sellable occupancy, not one peak week.
Net after fees is what matters, and it is the half of the equation you can build from documents: the management agreement, the common-area charge, the platform commission, the cleaning per changeover. The occupancy and rate comparison between Surin and the volume areas has been withdrawn: neither is published, so neither can be shown to win. What is checkable is that a narrow luxury segment costs more to market to and turns over less often, and that both of those show up in the operator's fee.
Sometimes, if purchase price is low enough and occupancy is stable. Compare yield on capital, not headline occupancy. Entry around $96K changes maths only with realistic rent assumptions.
Use conservative annual occupancy, not peak-only. Many professionally managed units start from a 70-85% annual band depending on area and quality, then stress-test 10 points lower.
Usually it improves conversion and operations through reviews and response times, but cannot fix bad location pins or misleading listings. Management raises the ceiling, not physics.
If juristic person bylaws prohibit short-term rental, area occupancy data is irrelevant to your unit. Verify STR legality before using corridor benchmarks.
Red flags in any occupancy claim
- An annual average with no monthly breakdown. Phuket’s year has two distinct halves and the blended figure conceals the one that decides your cash flow. Ask for twelve months, month by month, from comparable units in the specific building.
- Occupancy quoted without an average length of stay. Two buildings running the same occupancy, one averaging three nights a booking and one averaging seven, are different businesses behind the same headline, and the second keeps considerably more of its gross because turnover cost is fixed per changeover.
- An area figure applied to a specific unit. Occupancy is a building-level and manager-level number. Two buildings on the same road diverge by several points on management alone.
- No hotel licence position. Stays under 30 days are hotel business under the Thai Hotel Act absent a licence, and house rules can prohibit short lets independently. An occupancy figure for a building that cannot lawfully let nightly is meaningless.
- Figures from a strong season presented as typical. Ask specifically for the trailing twelve months rather than a period the manager chose.
- Occupancy without the corresponding rate. High occupancy at a discounted rate is a volume strategy, and it looks identical to a strong performance until you see the revenue.
Insider tip: ask what the manager did in September, not what they achieved in February. Any competent operator fills a west-coast unit in high season; the difference between a good manager and an average one shows entirely in the monsoon months, and that is the half of the year that decides whether your annual net is worth having.
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Olga
Head of Rentals, MORE Group
Runs the rental side at MORE Group: occupancy and rate data from managed Phuket units, management-company selection, and what an owner actually nets after costs.
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