Diving in Thailand has become very popular as the Kingdom is home to some of the finest and most beautiful beaches and islands in the world, surrounded by water and coral. And that is the main reason why the number of divers coming to Thailand has escalated over the past decade or so.The sea visibility in some places of Thailand means talking about distances of up to 30 meters; the sights of underwater mountains, coral gardens, undersea rock formations, hard and soft coral, whale sharks, silver tip sharks, manta rays and even sunken battleships.
Diving in Thailand is a recently new phenomenon beginning with the American Navy SEALs during the Vietnam War. Thailand’s first ever diving store was opened in Pattaya in just 1977 and shortly after that very year, the popularity of diving for both Thais and foreigners in Thailand exploded.
After Pattaya, the next destination to see divers arriving by the busload was Phuket and they were soon heading out to dive in the gorgeous Similan Islands and the rest of the stunning Andaman Sea. In the fact, the Similan islands have been ranked as one of the top ten diving sites in the entire world. Today, diving is popular all over the Andaman Sea, including the virtually unseen Tarutao and Surin islands.
Over on the other side of Thailand in the Gulf of China, Ko Tao (Turtle Island) has recently emerged as the biggest diving destination in Thailand with over twenty major centers located on the island.
It is believed that Thailand is now the most popular destination for diving in the whole of Asia and is one of the most popular diving destination in the world
Statistics show that over 500,000 dive tourists visit Thailand a year. From 1999 to 2003 the Similans attained a five fold increase in the amount of visitors, which was just 10,000 increased to 50,000 and most of them were divers. The income grew in that time from 22,000USD to a staggering 460,000USD with foreign divers each spending an average of roughly 1,200USD.
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