For half of the year, cruise ships are low profile visitors to Phuket. Quietly gliding in and out of the deep water port at Ao Makham, the ships dock far away from the island's population centres and discharge their passengers onto air conditioned coaches that fan out to attractions from Phang Nga to Patong.

During the high season, however, they're high profile visitors. Anchored in Patong Bay, the massive ships are an unmistakable sign of the ongoing boom in tourism on Phuket. Beginning with this year's high season, the line-up in the bay will become crowded as more and more cruise ships make Phuket a featured port-of-call.

By some estimates, cruise ships already bring more than 100,000 tourists to Phuket each year. That number will surely increase during the next few years. At this year's Seatrade Cruise Shipping Convention in March, top lines like Holland America and the Yachts of Seabourn told the Tourism Authority of Thailand that they would begin making stops in Phuket by 2009. But the list of ships committed to sailing to Phuket continues to grow.

Star Cruises has long been the major player for cruises to Phuket. The cruise lines' SuperStar Aquarius and SuperStar Gemini already make weekly visits to the island. During the next few months, they will be joined by ships from Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, the Yachts of Seabourn, Princess Cruises, Slversea, Oceania, Regent/Radisson, Holland America Lines, Cunard, Costa Cruises and Crystal, which have all started marketing 2008 and 2009 sailings with itineraries including Phuket as a port of call.

When the ships dock or anchor here, it's the job of local companies like Phuket City's Sea Tours to show the passengers a good time. A shore excursion agent for cruise lines, Sea Tours formed 20 years ago when ships brought only a few hundred passengers to the island every year, and it has grown along with the cruise industry's interest in visiting Phuket. Leenawat Roonguthai, Sea Tour's executive assistant manager, has worked with the company for the past 17 years.

Does Sea Tours work as a port agent, or do you work to arrange tours on land?
We work to arrange tours on land. Usually we're called a shore excursion agent.

How long has the company worked in Phuket?
Many years. Over 20 years in Phuket.

Have cruise ships come here for that long?
I've been with the company for 17 years, and the reason I was hired was because there were cruise ships arriving even before my time. That's why we had to start the office here. The first few cruise ships were called the Song of Flower. Now they're called Radisson Seven Seas cruises.

Did they come every high season?
Yes, every high season. And after that all the big names started coming. Let's see if I can name all of them. Carnival started sending a Princess ship, Royal Caribbean this morning has a ship in Singapore and Hong Kong. Royal Caribbean started only last year. They tested the market last season, and starting this high season they will deploy one ship again. The big player is Star Cruises. For the time being, they're sending two ships weekly here to Phuket..

Do you work with all of these cruise lines for shore excursions? Or most of them?
I work with most of them. We have been here long enough, and we know many cruise companies. We serve most of them.

During high sea, how many ships per week is typical?
Through Star Cruises we get two ships per week. Beginning next year that will be increased to three ships per week during high season. Apart from that, we've got a new big player coming in. Royal Caribbean will probably send nine ships, stopping nine time during the high season. Many other players will come maybe once or twice a year, or three times a year. They're just passing by, sometimes while the ships are repositioning to new bases.

In the high season do they usually stop in Patong, or do they also use Ao Makham?
It depends on a few factors. In the high season, because of the northeast monsoon, the wind blows out of the east. That affects the Ao Makham area because the wind push the ships into the dock. In Ao Makham we have limited depth. As far as I heard, the water there is about 10 metres deep. So if the ship require a depth of more than eight metres, they won't be able to fit into the dock. Also, sometimes the wind pushes them onto the dock, and it's difficult for them to manoeuvre. They have to turn around to get in there, so many of the ships have to have very high tech equipment. They can fit into the dock by coming backwards up to it. Many of the ships go to anchor off of Patong Beach for that reason. Sometimes, too, it's more convenient for them. After tendering (when small boats ferry passengers from the ship to shore), they can just get off of the tender boat and walk right into the city. It's more fun for the passengers.

Who takes care of the tender dock in Patong?
It's set up in the high season when the sea is calm enough. We call it a pontoon. We take it out of the canal where it's kept, and we put it in position for the ship to use. It's a private contractor who has a license to operate it.

Can you tell me a little bit about your tours?
The thing is that the main concerns for the ship and us and the municipality is that everybody is trying to move a bunch of people. We're talking 1,000 people at a time and in a limited time frame. We want to get them out of the dock as conveniently as possible and spread them out to tourist sites all over the island, Phang Nga and Phi Phi Island so they won't be too crowded.

Where do you go on your tours? Do you offer different excursions depending on the kinds of passengers on each cruise line?
Ships on around-the-world cruises tend to have elderly people as passengers, and they want something easy, without much walking and where wheelchairs have easy access. So we do a typical island tour with a comfortable coach. We take them around the island visiting temples, beaches, shopping areas and Talang Museum and come back. We might take them to a cultural show like the Thai village. And many of the people want us to take them for elephant riding or to Phang Nga. Some we take out on a speed boat to islands nearby like the coral island. Or we take them out on Phang Nga Bay in a canoe or on a motor boat or junk. If they spend the night here, we will bring them to Simon Cabaret for the show, and to Phuket FantaSea. There are those who only want some transportation with a guide, or sometimes if the ship requires it we arrange transportation for them, a shuttle bus because they need it since the port is 10km from town.

Do you have shuttle buses that run most of the time?
When required by the ship. Everybody would be happy if the town had enough public transportation between the port and the town. But for the time being that's what we have to do.

How many buses do you operate on an average day?
It depends on the size of the ship. Usually we operate between 30 and 40 buses each time when a ship arrives.

How many passengers go on tours from each ship?
If it's a big ship, they will bring in 1,500 or 2,000 passengers. The biggest one was 2,500 -- the SuperStar Virgo. Imagine that! Once we talked to the man who owned the ship, and we asked him why he did not send his ship here more often. He said, "You cannot accept our ship. We are too big." That's what he said, and it's true.

How big was that ship?
The cruise industry has started building ships that are 200,000 tonnes gross. More and more big ships are being deployed, and we are too small for them.

Is it a very big project to accommodate those huge ships? Do the docks have to be rebuilt?
It's too big for me to say. I'm not in a position to say something like that. For us it would beautiful. The world would be good for us, good for everybody. We want to welcome more people who come by cruise ship, but our door is too small. So they cannot fit in the door, and the people inside cannot take care of them.

Can you tell me a little bit about the people who do come? What kind of feedback do you get from them? What kinds of things do they like to see on Phuket? What do they like to do?
I would think generally they say something nice. We know we have some drawbacks here. The attractions here are mostly on the beach. There's nothing much to support a day tripper, not like in Europe where you can enjoy architecture, parks and many other beautiful things appealing to a passenger. But everywhere around this area is about the same. It is kind of small. Here in Phuket, we receive very good feedback from the passengers and from the cruise lines. We count our success by the percentage of people who buy tours. Here's a comparison. For example, if there are 1,000 people on the cruise ship, maybe only 30 percent will buy a tour operating in Kuala Lumpur. But over here we have between 50, 60, 70 percent -- the highest average percentage of the people who buy shore excursions from the cruise line. The cruise ship, they like it because it boosts their revenue. Over here because of the nature of Thai people, I think the passengers enjoy their stay. We have very few complaints. Passengers might complain that the air conditioning isn't good enough during the hot season, but that's about it.

Do you work with many businesses in Phuket to accommodate the shore excursions and the passengers?
We do. Our business is like a taxi. We transport the people out from the port and take them out to town and show them around. We support everyone along the way: the port, the people around the port who set up shops to sell food and souvenirs, the bus company, the drivers and the businesses in town. We move a lot of people into town to the department stores, the souvenir centers.

Has this business been growing as the cruise ships been growing?
Seventeen years ago, the Song of Flower came only three times a year, bringing 200 people each time they came. So only 600 people a year. Then one ship arrived that was bigger, and we were talking 2,000 or 10,000 maximum per year. These days we're talking 100,000 minimum per year.

Was there one year or one or two years or a time period when the number of people changed very rapidly, where it went from 200 people to thousands of people every year?
Yes, the 1990s when Star Cruises started coming. In the old days, we only had seasonal cruises. Then the two ships that came here were on around-the-world cruises. Or they would deploy a ship here for a two-week cruise, and then they would move elsewhere. Geographically speaking, it started when cruise lines developed a home port in Singapore.

With many different cruise lines coming, do you get passengers from many different parts of the world? Do they want different things?
Yes. It depends on the cruise line. Over here what we have is always the same. We have Phang Nga Bay, we have hiking, we have shows at night, we have city tours. Sometimes we modify things to fit a group. If for instance they want better food or don't want to walk as far. But just little things.
Witchureerat Kunprom also contributed to this story.