I wonder how they expect the UK to know tourists have only been to Phuket ?
The stamp in the passport will be for Thailand.
I wonder how they expect the UK to know tourists have only been to Phuket ?
The stamp in the passport will be for Thailand.
Agree with goji...more fantasy.
Not exactly! There are some fabulous five star resort hotels with beaches and multiple facilities and at hugely discounted prices with lots of handsome staff. I know that perversely you want this to fail, and perhaps you can't countenance a holiday without sleaze bars, but 300,000 room nights booking suggests you are in a minority.
https://pontevedrarecorder.com/stori...ng-covid,13336
Andaman! (August 16th, 2021)
Not true.The stamp in your passport is unique to the port of entry. It says Immigration Suvarnabhumi Airport Thailand if you entered at Swampy and Immigration Phuket Airport Thailand if entering there. Even if your flight transits through BKK, you clear immigration at your destination (Phuket). The land boarder to the rest of Thailand is currently closed, but self-declaration should be all that would be necessary for travel to Phuket to be given 'green' status even if the rest of Thailand was on an amber list.
Brad the Impala (August 16th, 2021), christianpfc (August 16th, 2021)
Not true. There are plenty of tourist attractions and restaurants open serving the sand-boxers.
There are many YouTube videos about life in Phuket every day and this guy (Don Kiko) regularly posts a helmet-cam video as he cruises around Patong on a scooter. This one is from yesterday, shot a night as he rides up Thaveewong Road and then around Sainamyen Road. Some restaurants are closed (including McD's) but many are open, with customers. It's quite dark north of Savoey Restaurant with everything closed there, but Sainamyen Road is quite busy all the way into the non-touristy heartlands of Patong.
Andaman! (August 16th, 2021), Brad the Impala (August 16th, 2021)
I've never wanted anything to fail that would be in Thailand's best interest, and you couldn't be farther off in your thinking.
I've been saying since the beginning of this half-baked Sandtrap that TAT churned up would fail because of the timing. Nothing more, nothing less. I couldn't see, and still can't see any reopening in Thailand happening successfully until the Delta Variant that's still sweeping across Thailand is under control - and the majority of the population over here has received a covid vaccine.
The majority of tourists who signed on to TAT's Phuket scheme believed they could quarantine on the island for 2 weeks and then travel North to their beloved Thailand, and are now very sorry they came. Those are the voices that you should be listening to when touting your support of this premature opening...not mine. Thailand isn't ready to open its doors to anyone yet, and it certainly wasn't prepared back in July either.
It's easy for you to sit back on your porch sipping lemonade in the confines of a controlled environment - where the reported cases of the Delta Variant have plateaued and the majority of the population has either received the vaccine, or at least has the opportunity to get the vaccine if they want to. That's not the case over here. There are protests which have now transitioned into violent riots going on daily in Bangkok stemming from the governments inability to protect its people, and I can assure you, as much as the Thai people want the economy rolling again, the most important thing to them right now is their personal safety and the wellbeing of their family members.
Farang, like yourself, who are only concerned with one thing and one thing only, and that's getting back to their "boys" in Thailand, are narrow-sighted and self-serving in those regards. What's happening over here now is a matter of life or death, and the last thing the residents over here want, including me, is to allow a flow of tourists coming in before a healthy portion of the population is vaccinated and protected. To be blunt, you should be ashamed of yourself.
TAT's next scheme to reopen Pattaya in September has now been totally scrapped, in part because of what happened in Phuket. Why Brad?...because the time is not right, and now they know it!
If you find it impossible to comprehend these things, I'll wager it's because you don't want to understand these things. You're only concern is for yourself and that limp piece of meat that's dangling between your legs...and that my friend is "perverse".
If you can't get that through your head - too bad.
arsenal (August 16th, 2021), splinter1949 (August 16th, 2021)
Seems to me you are addressing several other posters who have regularly expressed such sentiments, however I have not been among them. I see one of them even "liked" your post!
Regarding the benefits and usefulness of the Phuket Sandbox, I have linked in this thread to other more qualified commentators than yourself who have explained this. Unfortunately you don't seem to be able to take this in, or perhaps your current emotional state prevents you processing this. Even if the Phuket Sandbox closed tomorrow it will still have benefitted the majority of tourists for whom it has been a success, the businesses for which it has provided some income in difficult times, their employees and their dependents. Most importantly it has demonstrated a methodology for opening up in the future both for Thailand and elsewhere.
If you want to argue against the benefits of the Phuket Sandbox, although why would you want to, it would more effective if you didn't use such demonstrably false statements as:
You expected the Sandbox to be a failure, you didn't think that it would open on July 1st, and you are still desperately trying to persuade anyone who will listen that you were right. However instead of making your case based on facts, you are coating your comments in personal vitriol, while trying to make it an issue of morality!!
Brad. Please don't go down the path of getting your knickers in a twist over 'likes.' It leads to frequent, steviewonders, mrgiggles etc and I'm sure you don't want that.
"Desperate"..."Persuade"...such strong language.
You seem to be forgetting that I live in Thailand and have absolutely ZERO personal concerns over what happens during any these TAT Sandbox Schemes.
You, on-the-other-hand, have a reason to be "desperate"...and have chosen to continue cherry-picking ads saying that the Phuket Sandbox was a good thing as a means of giving "yourself" hope that you will be able to return again soon. You don't like me slamming these TAT schemes, because these schemes are the only thing you have to draw hope from. I understand this, but still see it as being shallow and self-serving.
We (the people who actually live here) believe that if the reported cases of the Delta variant go down, and the majority of the population has been vaccinated, that things could start opening up again - and tourists returning - in mid-2022. Any attempts to reopen before it's safe to do so will suffer the same consequences as were suffered in Phuket. Plain and simple.
Enjoy your lemonade.
"The Phuket Sandbox, Thailand’s program that allows foreign travelers to enter the country and stay in Phuket without needing to quarantine, has been given the green light by the Thai government to expand. The expansion means that those who enter as part of the sandbox scheme will be able to visit other destinations in the country, including some very popular tourist hotspots."
https://www.traveloffpath.com/phuket...-destinations/
"Thailand’s ‘Phuket Sandbox’ scheme is a ray of hope for Asia’s tourism industry.
The pilot scheme sends an important signal for the rest of Thailand and other resort markets
When Asia’s zero-tolerance policy is proving unworkable, the sandbox scheme recognises that a new approach is needed towards an increasingly endemic virus."
https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion...urism-industry