Thai sandbox idea rekindles tourism

BANGKOK — A week into an ambitious but risky plan to open the Thai resort island of Phuket to vaccinated visitors, signs were encouraging that the gambit to resuscitate the decimated tourism industry was working, even as infections elsewhere in the country surged last week to record highs.

After seeing fewer than 5,000 foreign travelers over the first five months of the year, the island off Thailand’s southwest coast, whose economy is 95% reliant on the tourist industry, welcomed 2,399 visitors during the first week of July.

The so-called Phuket sandbox plan relies on a strategy of vaccinations, testing and restrictions — measures that officials are hoping are strict enough to mitigate any covid-19 threat while still providing enough freedom for tourists to enjoy a beach vacation.

In the week before the sandbox started on July 1, Phuket saw 17 new cases of the coronavirus. The…