PHUKET, December 8, 2021: Laguna Phuket is celebrating the return of international events and sports tourism by hosting three major beach volleyball championships.
Athletes and officials from five continents travel to Phuket’s main integrated resort for a trio of tournaments held at Angsana Laguna Phuket, the five-star beachfront resort specializing in outdoor activities.
The 2021 AVC Beach Volleyball Asian Senior 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 which sprawls over 1,000 acres of parkland and beachfront on Phuket’s west coast, where two beach volleyball tournaments are taking place this month after a major tournament ended November.
The recent 2021 AVC Senior Asian Beach Volleyball Championships took place from November 23-27, 2021, bringing together athletes, coaches and officials from 10 Asia-Pacific countries – 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 taking place at the resort until December 11, 2021, and the FIVB Beach Volleyball U20 World Championship will take place from December 14 to 16, 2021. These two global events have featured 28 men’s teams and 28 women’s teams from 48 countries and five continents!
The high-energy beach volleyball tournaments show Laguna Phuket’s ability to stage high-level sporting events.
Sports tourism has helped put Phuket on the world 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 has given the island a “first-mover advantage” and enabled it to capitalize 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 competitions televised in multiple countries, Phuket is likely to become even more attractive to guests of around the world in search of healthier ways to live and travel.
Phuket was the first destination in Southeast Asia to reopen safely to international visitors when it launched the Phuket Sandbox program in July 2021. Laguna Phuket has been instrumental in the success of the initiative, creating a series of “Safe Haven” packages in its collection of seven SHA Certified Plus Hotels and Resorts and partnering with Bangkok Hospital Phuket to open a PCR testing center in its Canal Village.
“Phuket is a global hub for sports tourism. With the island’s exceptional infrastructure, year-round outdoor climate and world-class hospitality, we have proven that we can host events of any size, from small groups of active travelers to major international competitions. Laguna Phuket is at the heart of this area, 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 this will help revive Phuket’s tourism industry in 2022 and beyond,” said Ravi Chandran, CEO of Laguna Resorts & Hotels.
