The Koh Phi Phi islands in Thailand deliver some of the most breathtaking scenery you’re ever likely to see, but they’ve also struggled with overtourism issues since featuring in Danny Boyle’s The Beach
The island can become incredibly crowded during the summer (Image: INTERNET)
An alarming crowd scene on the shores of one of the world’s most famous coastlines has raised overtourism concerns.
The Koh Phi Phi islands in Thailand deliver some of the most breathtaking scenery you’re ever likely to see. Sat in the Andaman Sea, they’re made up of dramatic limestone cliffs and white sand bays surrounded by turquoise waters filled with tropical fish.
The islands have long been popular among tourists, but particularly so since they starred in Danny Boyle’s The Beach.
The success of the film has been a disaster for the pristine, idyllic beach that gives the flick its name. Each year huge numbers travel to Koh Phi Phi’s Maya Bay, where it was shot, to bask in its impossibly blue waters and sunbathe on the golden sands.
Today, the reality of the Thai destination could not be further from the slice of paradise at the heart of the film.
A recent video from Koh Phi Phi shows a crowd of hundreds of sunseekers, packed shoulder to shoulder. They appear to be close to the dock, not yet having arrived at Maya Bay.
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The video has been met with negativity on Reddit, where it was posted. “Nothing about that looks fun,” one user wrote. Another added: “Absolutely not worth going. I went last month and it was so crowded it just wasn’t fun. At all.” A third wrote: “What a nightmare.”
Koh Tours, which offers trips around the archipelago, recently wrote a blog post about the situation there, explaining that efforts to tackle overtourism had proved difficult.
“Koh Phi Phi Leh — the smaller, uninhabited island with Maya Bay — was famously closed for three years after The Beach tourism wrecked the coral and stressed out the blacktip reef sharks,” the post reads.
“They reopened it in January 2022 with timed entries, boat limits, no overnight stays, no sunscreen allowed in the water. It’s genuinely better than it was in 2018. But it’s not quiet. A ‘boat limit’ of a couple of hundred visitors at a time still means a couple of hundred people standing in the same shallow bay.
According to Koh Tours, the archipelago’s other main island, Koh Phi Phi Don, also suffers from crowds.
“Koh Phi Phi Don is genuinely crowded. Not ‘it gets a bit busy in peak season’ crowded. Actually crowded. The village on Tonsai Bay — which is basically the whole flat part of the island between the two bays — packs in more foot traffic per square metre than most Thai cities,” the post continues.
Jub Yata is a destination manager at Intrepid Travel, a firm which specialises in sustainable tourism.
“Right now, you just walk around, you take the photos, then you have to leave. Everyone wants to see the beach from the DiCaprio film. It is beautiful, I can’t deny, but there are too many people,” she said of Maya Bay.
Jub works with Intrepid to take tourists to Thailand in a more responsible way that doesn’t overwhelm the most popular destinations. In recent years, this has meant visits to Koh Thap, Koh Poda, and Koh Khai.
Koh Thap is one of the most popular offshore islands around Krabi – a region in the west of Thailand, just across from Phuket. Most island-hopping tours come here to witness and photograph the amazing parting of the seas.
At low tide, a stretch of sand emerges from the waters, linking the larger landmass known as Chicken Island to Koh Mor and Koh Thap. The phenomenon is commonly referred to as Talay Waek, which means divided sea.
Koh Poda is a particularly quiet and tranquil place. One Intrepid traveller said that the island “felt like a completely deserted Robinson Crusoe island”.
Meanwhile, Koh Khai in Phuket is the most built-up and well-visited of the three islands included in the Intrepid tour. Made up of three small islands – Khai Nok, Khai Nai and Khai Nui – it is easy to hop from one island to the next, even in the space of just half a day. Khai Nai is the biggest of the three and has spectacular views and a white sandy beach which makes it perfect for snorkelling and swimming.