While most Japanese people are anxiously awaiting the start of the Tokyo Olympics on July 23, here in Thailand we're holding our breath as the country counts down to reopening Phuket.
The country's most famous tourist destination is scheduled to start welcoming fully vaccinated foreigners on Thursday, having beaten back the Covid wave that continues to surge in the Bangkok area, and having vaccinated a sizeable number of the island's residents.
The much-touted Phuket Sandbox model will allow fully vaccinated tourists to fly direct to the island without undergoing a two-week quarantine, though here are lots of other strings attached. They include at least three Covid tests during their visit and a requirement that they stay in Phuket at least 14 days before travelling to other regions of the country.
Phuket appears well prepared, having kept new Covid-19 cases in the low single digits (and zero on some days) since May, when it introduced negative test requirements for domestic arrivals. If all goes well, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) believes a target of 600,000 tourists -- both foreign and local -- and 15 billion baht in revenue in the third quarter is within reach.
On a national scale, the government hopes the scheme will attract 129,000 international visitors in the third quarter, a far cry from the average 3.3 million monthly arrivals in 2019. Typically, a quarter of those visitors go to Phuket.
Just 28,701 visitors arrived in Thailand between January and April this year. The tourism-reliant economy lost about US$50 billion last year when foreign arrivals plunged 83% to 6.7 million (almost all of those before March), from a record 39.9 million in 2019.
Phuket, which depends more than any other province on tourism, has suffered hugely because of the 15-month ban on international arrivals. The Thai economy as a whole last year recorded its worst performance since the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The Bank of Thailand has now trimmed its forecast for 2021 gross domestic product (GDP) growth to just 1.8%, from 3% previously, citing the impact of the third Covid wave. It projects only 700,000 foreign tourist arrivals for the full year, and 10 million in 2022.
The government still plans to fully reopen Thailand's borders to foreign visitors in October, taking a calculated risk to boost the economy. That would require authorities to hit the target of fully vaccinating 50 million residents in four months.
The Prayut Chan-o-cha administration has come under heavy criticism for its handling of the pandemic -- from the start-stop approach to restrictions and uneven state support for affected sectors to the procurement of vaccines. The nationwide vaccination rate is still only about 5%, compared to nearly 70% in Phuket.
The figure for Phuket, however, does not account for thousands of tourism workers who left the island for their hometowns when everything closed down, and who hope to return as tourism restarts.
Phuket was highly popular with tourists from Europe, Australia and many Asian countries before Covid struck. The initial focus of the reopening is on tourists from countries including Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Norway, Spain and the United Arab Emirates. Chinese visitors are expected to arrive starting in the final quarter.
Coming from countries with similar risk profiles as Thailand, these visitors are unlikely to pose an added risk. Research has shown that fully inoculated people are better protected from infection and hence less likely to spread the virus.
However, the risks are not zero, and other practical measures are needed, including a good system for tracking tourists during their stay. Also important in my view is to push for much-faster vaccination across the rest of Thailand so foreign and local tourists will be more confident to travel.
At the same time, tourists may be less willing to travel if they are exposed to the hassle of quarantine, Covid tests and other inconveniences when they return home. To lessen such concern, the Phuket Sandbox will have to be as frictionless, easy and convenient as possible to be successful.
Safety is the top priority for all tourists, people working in the industry and residents in Phuket. If the scheme proves successful, other tourism spots will follow suit, notably Samui and Krabi, but also other locations in Asean such as Bali.
We would all welcome a significant rebound for the tourism industry, one of the hardest-hit sectors of the pandemic, with a revival in jobs to help the overall economy back on its feet.