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Along Patong beach in Phuket, noisy and loud foreign tourists are closed to restaurants and bars and inviting blue waters are empty, apart from a few Thai bathers.
Covid-19 has removed Thailand’s largest tourist island in 2019, registering 10 million foreign visitors for passengers, turning numerous resorts into ghost boats.
From Thursday, the island will begin accepting foreign tourists for the first time in more than a year, according to a pilot program called “Phuket Sandbox”.
Fully embedded visitors will enter Phuket without having to endure a two-week quarantine if they fly before the Covid-19 test and before the two arrive. They also need to download the location tracking app and stop traveling to the Thai mainland for 14 days.
While the rest of Thailand is struggling vaccination delays, Phuket has been given preferential access to ownership. Officials said more than 70% of Phuket’s population of 500,000 was expected to be fully vaccinated at the start of the sandbox program.
“The key message will be the immunity and non-quarantine of the herd,” said Bhummikitti Ruktaengam, president of the Phuket Tourism Association. “The goal is to establish a new balance between disease control and the economic movement.”
The sandbox scheme, if it works, will serve as a prelude to the reopening of other Thai islands and beaches to foreign visitors and for the full opening of the kingdom by October. Tourism Thailand produces about a fifth ‘s gross domestic product.
Phuket received a record 10 million foreign tourists in 2019 © Taylor Weidman / Bloomberg
Patla, Phuket, Bangla Desert Road. Its bars and restaurants are usually full of visitors © Taylor Weidman / Bloomberg
They are looking at the experience up close as Asian tourism officials sealed restrictions on foreign tourists during the pandemic Bali in Indonesia Phu Quoc-era in Vietnam.
“It’s a historic moment in Asia,” said Ho Kwon Ping, CEO of Banyan Tree Group. “The idea of opening borders without quarantine is not innovative in Europe,” he noted, but it is rare in Asia as they continue to be rigorously honest travelers.
Thailand’s embrace of the Sandbox was remarkable tako change in pandemic management. In the first year of the outbreak, it sealed the boundaries for most visitors and tried to bring local infections to zero.
It seems that this approach was working in the second half of 2020 as a restaurant, night spot and resort he started a normal businessAlthough only for Thais and foreigners.
Since April, however, the virus has risen, although it has suffered from the government of Prayuth Chan-ocha increasing pressure from business to reopening.
“I know that this decision has some risks, because when we open the country the infections will increase, no matter how good our intentions are,” the Thai prime minister said in a recent speech promising to reopen the country’s borders. Within 120 days.
Hospitality groups have said the Sandbox plan is a plan to manage health risks around reopening, increasing local revenues and approving Covid-19 as a fact of life. “If we don’t open soon, forget about Covid – we’re starving,” says Frederic Varnier, general manager of Phuket’s Anantara Hotels.
Officials believe the Phuket Sandbox is a very good place to go, as it can only be reached by bridge, boat or plane. Emirates and other Middle East airlines recover flights and national Thai Airways now in administration, Is planning flights to five European cities.
“The request of people who want to travel is saved,” said Chattan Kunjara Na Ayudhya, deputy director of the Asia Pacific Tourism Authority for Thailand. “Being an island makes it easier to control, observe and have occurrences, if any.”
However, the Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy, predicted that the scheme would have “little initial impact”. They say they will arrive this year but “only a small portion of the previous levels of the pandemic will arrive”.
Tourism officials predict that 100,000 foreigners will visit Phuket in the third quarter, and will be arriving by the end of this year slowly. British tourists, for example, can travel to SpainCloser to Greece or other beach destinations without having to be quarantined on arrival.
Sandbox marketing also coincides with the Thai monsoon season, traditionally a quiet time in Phuket. Serving alcohol in public is prohibited under Thailand’s Covid restrictions, which means guests will be required to drink in their rooms.
Thai employers said the restrictions were harsh, including a mandatory entry certificate guaranteed at the Thai embassy.
“If they want to see the numbers go up, they need to get rid of the CoE,” said William Heinecke, CEO of Minor International, which owns the Anantara brand.
Infections have reached 4,000-5,000 cases a day recently, and could spark anger against the Prayuth government, which could explode in public reaction among tourists in Phuket.
Hotel owners are already tempering their expectations.
“It simply came to our notice then [rainy] season, “said Krystal Prakaikaew Na-Ranong, founder and owner of The Slate Hotel in Phuket. However, she added:” It’s a good start to start preparing for the fourth quarter and high season. “
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