Thailand will reopen Phuket for vaccinated tourists From July

Photographer: Taylor Weidman / Bloomberg

Thailand will drop quarantine requirements for vaccinated foreign visitors arriving on the island of Phuket from July 1, the first key to reopen for the tourism-dependent nation.

A panel chaired by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha on Friday approved a proposal by the private sector and business groups in Phuket to inoculate at least 70% of the island’s residents to prepare for the reopening of vaccinated tourists, according to Tourism Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn.

The government plans to test Phuket’s reopening plan before expanding to other key tourist spots, including Koh Samui, to help revive the one-year-old tourism industry without its millions of tourists, who have contributed a fifth of the economy before. of the pandemic.

Confidence in tourism

Thailand has become more dependent on foreign visitors in the last decade

Sources: Ministry of Tourism and Sports, National Council for Economic and Social Development

Thailand supports vaccine passport before wider reopening

Approval means Phuket will reopen three months earlier than the rest of the country, which is expected to receive fully inoculated visitors only in October. Phuket residents will also be a priority in carrying out the vaccine, with more than 930,000 doses expected to be given before reopening, Bhummikitti Ruktaengam, president of the island’s tourism association, said separately earlier this week.

Shares of Thai hotel operators rallied on Friday, and the Tourism and Recreation SET index rose 2.4%, surpassing the 0.2% gain for the benchmark SET index. Minor International Pcl, the largest hotel operator in the country, rose by 3.2%, Asset World Corp. Pcl gained 3%, Hotel Central Plaza Pcl and Erawan Group Pcl advanced more than 4% each.

An early reopening could add more than 30 billion baht ($ 963 million) to the economy, but its success depends on international vaccine passport agreements and negotiations with other countries to allow free travel, Bhummikitti said.

Ready to travel

“There are people who are completely vaccinated and ready to travel. But it would only choose destinations that have vaccinated its residents and do not require quarantine, “said Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of the Thai Tourism Authority, which expects at least 100,000 visitors to Phuket in the third quarter.

Despite an outbreak earlier this year, Thailand has largely contained a pandemic, with only 92 deaths and 28,577 cases during the pandemic. This prompted the government to do so shorten the quarantine for visitors to 10 days from two weeks from April 1, with a plan to reduce it to one week for those with proof of vaccination traveling to Phuket, Koh Samui, Chiang Mai and three other destinations.

The government will continue gradually relax control measures as they see the health of the economy and people as equally important, Prayuth said on Thursday.

Central Bank of Thailand it has reduced its growth forecast for this year to 3%, while reducing the estimate of tourist arrivals to 3 million compared to the estimate of 5.5 million in December. The pandemic devastated the national tourism industry, which provided revenues of over $ 60 billion from about 40 million foreign visitors in 2019.

– With the assistance of Suttinee Yuvejwattana and Anuchit Nguyen

(Updates with the market response to the fifth paragraph.)