PHUKET Magazine recently interviewed one of the founders of the marine industry, Vincent Tabuteau, managing director of Thai Marine Leisure, operator of over 20 boats in Thailand.

“The small harbour is the single most critical lack in recreational boating in Thailand.” So says Vincent Tabuteau, who is also the co-chairman of the Franco-Thai working committee for Marine Tourism Development*.
The Thai marine leisure industry is booming, following recent legislative changes in its favour and more on the horizon. But what it could most benefit from right now is a network of “mini-marinas”.

Where boating activities are concentrated only in big marinas, some kinds of yachting are neglected. “In my opinion,” Tabuteau says, “the new Royal Phuket Marina, for instance, is a residential development with a marina. They use the marina to sell the property, not the other way around. And that’s fine. They’re aiming at a given luxury market, and they’ll doubtless succeed. And lots of private boats need this kind of marina. But bareboats or day charters won’t be able to use these facilities, given the market positioning the big marinas adopt.”

Beyond that, relying on a few big marinas limits the potential for cruising from remote place to remote place. A network of mini-marinas, on the other hand, would expand the effective range for comfortable and safe boating. As Tabuteau says, “In Greece, for example, you can visit more places because there are more places to sail from.” In Thailand, on the other hand, great cruising destinations such as Koh Chang and Koh Samui aren’t seeing many boats because there’s no infrastructure — for instance, no safe anchorages, no facilities to take on water and fuel, no piers for ease of embarkation.
Thailand offers four main marine recreational destinations: the Andaman Sea, with Phuket as its hub; Koh Samui and its scores of neighbouring islands; Koh Chang, with its associated island group and the Trat mainland coast; and the northern Gulf of Thailand, where major boating infrastructure centres on Pattaya/Jomtien. Each of these areas provides one or two large marinas as main bases, but each would benefit enormously from its own network of mini-marinas, the available facilities progressively smaller as you approach the more distant cruising destinations. “And,” says Tabuteau, “the sites the Marine Alliance of Thailand are recommending are like natural harbours, so you don’t need to build breakwaters.” Some of these harbours, furthermore — Thap Lamu, for instance, which already serves the Royal Thai Navy — can accommodate big boats, including 100ft-plus superyachts.

But private investors aren’t likely to be interested in building the mini-marinas. Such a network, arguably, should instead be a public infrastructure project built with government support, the mini-marinas providing a public service.
Why would the government want to support such a scheme? “I think they will see this in two ways,” Tabuteau says. First of all, the network would create new centres of recreational and commercial activity. Each mini-marina represents a centre of tax revenue-generating activities, and the local administrations will be interested in seeing a diverse commercial sector growing up around the marinas — everything from shops and restaurants to taxis and laundries. Secondly, the government needs to control the safety and flow of boats and their passengers, matters of both personal and national security. “These little harbours are good places to do this,” as Tabuteau says, “while they also provide bases for official vessels.”

In short, they would provide new opportunities to do business for marine leisure operators, shelter and support facilities for police and Harbour Department vessels, and tax revenues for local and national governments. And the big marina developers themselves should also have an interest in seeing this kind of network — it would present their customers with many more places to visit safely and comfortably.
But the development of this network of mini-marinas will need regulation, says Tabuteau: “Look what happened with sea-canoeing in Phang Nga, for example, or speedboats and other traffic in Phi Phi’s Tongsai Bay. Right now we don’t have enough small harbours. The danger is that the next thing we’ll have too many marinas.” The government should also look after such issues as waste disposal. “Lots of people will be coming in and out, and the public infrastructure plans should include measures to ensure they can do this safely and comfortably, with due consideration for the natural environment.”
Tabuteau suggests that planners should visit similar developments in Greece, Turkey and some parts of France, where, he believes, they’ve done it right.