Tourism industry aims for improvement over Sandbox for reopening

Thailand’s battered tourism industry is making final preparations for the big November 1 reopening with high hopes of welcoming back international travellers across Thailand. On November 1, the country will reopen with still somewhat convoluted 3 entry options and quarantine-free travel for arrivals from 46 low-risk countries.

The Phuket Sandbox, with nearly 58,000 arrivals from July 1, has been viewed as both a success and a failure by observers. The Samui Plus reopening was clearly far less successful with 1,825 arrivals into Koh Samui and a paltry 134 and 54 international arrivals into Koh Phangan and Koh Tao respectively since July 15.

Now the tourism industry is hoping that bumps in the road have been smoothed out and Thailand can overcome the Covid-19 hurdles and restart the tourist economy. They hope major gateways like Bangkok will see a significant financial boom with…