’Phuket sandbox’ a faint ray of hope for Thai tourism - Asia Times
▻https://asiatimes.com/2021/08/phuket-sandbox-a-faint-ray-of-hope-for-thai-tourism
BANGKOK – The Phuket sandbox was successfully opened to fully vaccinated foreign tourists on July 1 but it remains to be seen if the experiment will flop due to surging numbers of Covid-19 cases and other life-threatening hazards.Under the sandbox rules (and there are many), fully vaccinated foreign tourists are allowed to visit Phuket Island, Thailand’s prime Andaman Sea beach resort, without being forced to quarantine in a hotel for 14 days, as is still the case in Bangkok and elsewhere in the kingdom.But visitors are also required to undergo three Covid tests during the first seven days of their stay and must remain on the island for the first 14 days, after which they are allowed to leave for some select destinations. Prior to the scheme’s launch, nearly 70% of the island’s population of about 500,000 were vaccinated, including almost 100% of the staff working at 420 certified hotels and restaurants designated as Sandbox participants.
The scheme, the brainchild of various Phuket-based tourism and business associations with the backing of the Phuket governor and local authorities, was designed to prevent foreign visitors from spreading Covid to the local population and to make foreign tourists feel safe from the viral pandemic, which has now become a threat to even vaccinated people via the more contagious Delta variant. Most of the island’s new Covid cases have been found among Thais traveling to Phuket from other provinces, many of them being forced to flee Bangkok where the pandemic has forced new lockdowns and exacerbated unemployment. As of August 4, at least 46 incoming tourists had tested positive for Covid-19 out of 16,060 arrivals since July 1.
On August 3, Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew sealed off the entire island to Thai travelers from other provinces, even if they were returning to their homes. All domestic flights to the island were also canceled, forcing some Phuket sandbox tourists to take buses to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport to catch their flights home.Phuket, which pre-Covid was the second wealthiest province in Thailand after Bangkok in terms of per capita income, is almost entirely dependent on tourism. In 2019, some 14 million tourists including 9 million foreigners visited Phuket, earning the island some 450 billion baht (US$13.5 billion) in revenue. Last year, the island province’s tourism revenue fell to 108 billion baht, generated from tourists who arrived during the first quarter of 2021 before the Covid pandemic prompted a ban on foreign tourist arrivals nationwide. During the first half of 2021, the take was only 5.2 billion baht, according to the Thai Ministry of Sports and Tourism.In pre-Covid Thailand, tourism generated about 18% of gross domestic product (GDP). With the third wave of Covid, which started in April leading to a spike in cases and deaths and forcing new lockdowns, the Bank of Thailand last week trimmed its forecast for gross domestic product (GDP) growth this year to 0.7%, down from the previous projection of 1.8%. Chinese tourists, who accounted for 28% of the 40 million-plus tourist arrivals in pre-Covid 2019, face international travel bans at home, which will likely exclude their numbers from the Phuket sandbox.
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