A recent development is the creation in the interior of the islands, and especially on Phuket, of new, primarily "contrived" attractions. On Phuket, there are half a dozen golf courses, as well as such amenities as a butterfly garden, shooting ranges, and souvenir and craft shopping areas non only around the hotels. While some such establishments, as for instance a butterfly garden, have recently also appeared in Koh Samui, most of the new attractions in the interior of the island are small-scale affairs, created by local villagers, such as shows of "monkeys picking coconuts." Altogether, Koh Samui hotel tourism is as yet restricted to the beaches and their immediate hinterland. Except for a few waterfalls, the hilly inland remains unpenetrated by tourism.

The establishment of major resorts and hotels was accompanied by the provision of ever more diversified and specialized services on and off the premises. While the beach and the sea remained the principal free amenities, the more luxurious establishments offered a growing range of facilities, such as restaurants and bars, diving equipment and instruction, and excursion programs.

Partly complementing and partly competing with these internalized services, hotels and facilities are virtually hundreds of small establishments, catering primarily to tourists. These include mini-markets, general stores and tourist shops, various personal services, such as travel agencies, photo shops, laundries, beauty and massage parlors, car and motor cycle rentals, bars, eating stalls, and a range of restaurants.

The growth, expansion and upgrading of the tourism industry on Phuket and Koh Samui have gradually transformed these islands, and created a widening gap between their paradisiac image and reality. Environmental degradation, high tourist densities and rising prices (not only the hotel rates) have induced the younger set to search for as yet unspoilt beaches and natural scenery. Youth tourism has expanded from the two mature vacationing islands, to new and ever more remote sites, so that at present, it has just about reached the limits of further expansion within the borders of Thailand.

From Koh Samui tourism spread into smaller, neighboring islands in the Gulf of Thailand, at first onto Phangan, an island which recently gained increasing popularity and some notoriety due to the monthly full-moon parties on one of its beaches; later on, tourism also penetrated the even smaller Koh Tao. Since the other small islands in the Gulf of Siam have been made into a National Maritime Park, they are attractive excursion destinations, but no hotels and tourist facilities have been established on them. Tourism on the islands of the southern Gulf of Siam has therefore reached the limits of expansion.

From the island of Phuket, which is located in the Andaman Sea, tourism spread mainly southward, into the province of Krabi, where the Phi Phi island group became the most popular destination for youth travellers. More recently, youth tourism has begun to penetrate several of the smaller islands of the Krabi archipelago as well as some of the mainland beaches, among which Ao Nang is showing signs of rapid development. Cruising excursions are also stopping at the remote and sparsely populated Surin and Similan island groups which, as National Parks, are closed to resort tourism. However, some resorts have recently been established on the big, southernmost island of Tarutao, close to the Malaysian border, notwithstanding the fact that it is also a National Park. Island tourism along the coast of the Andaman Sea has thereby also reached its limits within the borders of Thailand. Beyond these borders, and in the immediate vicinity of Tarutao island, lies the Malaysian island of Langawi, which is becoming a center of vacationing tourism. Some regionalization of island vacationing can thus be expected to occur in the south of Thailand in the future, with "island hoppers" crossing from the Thai to the Malaysian side of the border, just as hill tribe trekking is presently undergoing regionalization in the north of the country.