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Along Phuket’s Patong Beach, formerly a key word for strong, strong tourists, restaurants and bars are closed and cozy blue waters are empty, apart from a few Thai bathers.
Covid-19 has stripped travelers of Thailand’s largest tourist island, which received a record 10 million foreign visitors in 2019, turning resorts into numerous ghost ships.
But starting Thursday, the island will begin accepting foreign tourists for the first time in more than a year, as part of a pilot program called “Phuket Sandbox.”
Fully vaccinated visitors will be able to enter Phuket without having to endure forty-two weeks, as long as they undergo a Covid-19 test before flying and two after arrival. They must also download a location app and refrain from traveling to mainland Thailand for 14 days.
While the rest of Thailand struggles with vaccination delays, Phuket has been given priority access to jabs. Officials said they expected more than 70 percent of Phuket’s population, about 500,000, to be fully vaccinated by the start of the testing program.
“The key message will be the immunity of the herd and not the quarantines,” said Bhummikitti Ruktaengam, president of the Phuket Tourism Association. “The goal is to try to strike a new balance between disease control and move the economy forward.”
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 a full opening of the kingdom, in October. Tourism generates about one-fifth of Thailand “s gross domestic product.
Phuket hosted a record 10 million foreign tourists in 2019 © Taylor Weidman / Bloomberg
A deserted road from Bangla to Patong, Phuket. Its bars and restaurants are often full of visitors © Taylor Weidman / Bloomberg
Tourism officials in Asian countries closely followed the experiment that sealed their borders to foreign tourists during the pandemic. Bali of Indonesia in the Phu Quoc of Vietnam.
“This is a historic moment for Asia,” said Ho Kwon Ping, chief executive of Banyan Tree Group. “The idea of opening borders without quarantine is not new in Europe,” he noted, but remains uncommon in Asia, where strict travel limits remain the norm.
Thailand’s hug to Sandbox marked a significant event stain change in its pandemic management. In the first year of the outbreak, it sealed the borders to most visitors and tried to reduce local infections to zero.
This approach seemed to work in the second half of 2020 as restaurants, nightclubs and resorts. resumed normal business, although only for Thais and foreign residents.
However, since April, the virus has increased, even when the government of Prayuth Chan-ocha has been subjected intensify the pressure from business to reopening.
“I know this decision carries some risk, because when we open the country there will be an increase in infections, no matter how good our intentions,” the Thai prime minister said in a recent speech promising to reopen the borders country within 120 days.
Hospitality groups said the Sandbox plan was a plan to manage the health risks associated with reopening while increasing local revenue and accepting 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 Anantara Hotels in Phuket.
Officials believe Phuket lends itself particularly well to Sandbox because it can only be reached by bridge, boat or plane. Emirates and other Middle Eastern airlines resume flights and Thai Airways, the national airline now in the administration, plans flights from five European cities.
“There is an accumulated demand from people who want to travel,” Chattan Kunjara Na Ayudhya, deputy director of Asia Pacific at the Thailand Tourism Authority, said. “Being an island makes it easier to control, observe and contain outbreaks if any.”
However, Eurasia Group, the risk consultancy, predicted that the scheme would have “little initial impact”. They said arrivals would increase this year, but would reach “only a small fraction of pre-pandemic levels.”
Tourism officials predict that only 100,000 foreigners will visit Phuket in the third quarter, and arrivals will slowly recover by the end of this year. British tourists, for example, can travel to Spain, Greece or other nearby beach destinations without having to quarantine on arrival.
Sandbox’s launch also coincides with Thailand’s monsoon season, traditionally a quiet period for Phuket. Serving alcohol in public is prohibited under Covid restrictions in Thailand, so guests will be required to drink in their rooms.
Employers in Thailand described the restrictions as serious, including mandatory formalities for a guaranteed entry certificate at an embassy in Thailand.
“If they really want to see the numbers increase, they have to get rid of the CoE,” said William Heinecke, chief executive of Minor International, which owns the Anantara brand.
Infections have recently risen to 4,000-5,000 cases a day, angering the Prayuth government that could erupt in a public backlash if outbreaks are detected in Phuket tourists.
Hotel owners are already tempering their expectations.
“I do not expect much to happen because of the [rainy] season, “said Krystal Prakaikaew Na-Ranong, co-founder and owner of The Slate, a Phuket hotel. However, he added:” It’s a good start to prepare us for the fourth quarter and high season. “
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