PHUKET, 8 December 2021: Laguna Phuket celebrates the return of international events and sports tourism as it hosts three major beach volleyball championships.
Athletes and officials from five continents head to Phuket’s leading integrated resort for a trio of tournaments held at Angsana Laguna Phuket, the five-star beachfront resort that specialises in outdoor activities.
The AVC 2021 Asian Senior Beach Volleyball Championships saw athletes, coaches and officials from 10 Asia Pacific countries compete on the beach outside Angsana Laguna Phuket.
The resort is part of the Laguna Phuket complex that spans 1,000 acres of parkland and beachfront on Phuket’s west coast, where two beach volleyball tournaments unfold this month following a major tournament in late November.
The recent AVC 2021 Asian Senior Beach Volleyball Championships ran from 23 to 27 November 2021, gathering athletes, coaches and officials from 10 countries in the Asia Pacific – Australia, New Zealand, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Philippines, Japan, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Iran – to compete on the soft sands outside Angsana Laguna Phuket.
The FIVB Beach Volleyball U19 World Championship is currently being hosted at the resort through to 11 December 2021, and the FIVB Beach Volleyball U20 World Championship follows from 14 to 16 December 2021. These two global events featured 28 male teams and 28 female teams from 48 countries and five continents!
The high-energy beach volleyball tournaments showcase Laguna Phuket’s ability to hold top-level sports events.
Sports tourism has helped to put Phuket on the global map in recent years, and it will play a key role in the island’s recovery in the post-pandemic era. The recent SMASH IT webinar, co-produced by C9 Hotelworks and Delivering Asia Communications, learned how the Phuket Sandbox initiative gave the island a “first-mover advantage” and allowed it to capitalise on the return of sporting events.
Phuket will also host Asian Tour golf tournaments this year, and the Laguna Phuket Marathon and Laguna Phuket Triathlon are set to return in 2022. With many of these contests being televised in multiple countries, Phuket is likely to become even more attractive to global guests seeking healthier ways to live and travel.
Phuket was the first Southeast Asian destination to safely reopen to international visitors when it launched the Phuket Sandbox programme in July 2021. Laguna Phuket was instrumental in the success of the initiative, creating a series of “Safe Haven” packages at its collection of seven SHA Plus-certified hotels and resorts and partnering with Bangkok Hospital Phuket to open a PCR test centre in its Canal Village.
“Phuket is a global hub for sports tourism. With the island’s outstanding infrastructure, year-round outdoor climate and world-class hospitality, we have proved that we can stage any size of event, from small groups of active travellers to major international competitions. Laguna Phuket is at the heart of this sector, so we are delighted to have been able to welcome the AVB and FIVB back to the island for these important tournaments. I am confident that this will help to kickstart the recovery of Phuket’s tourism industry in 2022 and beyond,” said Laguna Resorts & Hotels CEO Ravi Chandran.
