Numbers low in Thailand’s Phuket tourism revival bid: Official

BANGKOK: Visitors to Thailand’s resort island of Phuket in July were at just 1 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, an official told Reuters, as a bid to revive tourism to the Southeast Asian country gets off to a slow start amid its biggest COVID-19 outbreak yet.

The island reopened last month under the “Phuket Sandbox” programme to fully-vaccinated tourists who could skip Thailand’s mandatory two-week quarantine provided they remained on Phuket, where tourism accounts for 90 per cent of the local economy.

Nearly 15,000 people visited the island from overseas in July, Phuket Tourist Association president Bhummikitti Ruktaengam told Reuters, equivalent to just more than 450 foreign arrivals a day.

“In the past, we were looking at 43,000 daily arrivals, so what we got was 1 per cent of normality,” he said. “1 per cent in business terms…