Phuket banking on 129000 arrivals

[spoon]

Phuket is set to welcome 129,000 international tourists in the first three months of the quarantine-free programme, while the government will team up with airlines to subsidise 100,000 one-way domestic air tickets, says the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).

TAT governor Yuthasak Supasorn said the reopening initiative -- Phuket Sandbox -- is expected to attract 30,000-40,000 tourists per month with long-haul markets being the main target

People receive Covid-19 vaccines in Phuket. The island is rushing to vaccinate locals ahead of the reopening initiative slated for July 1. (Photo by Achadthaya Chuenniran)

Phuket is set to welcome 129,000 international tourists in the first three months of the quarantine-free programme, while the government will team up with airlines to subsidise 100,000 one-way domestic air tickets, says the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).

TAT governor Yuthasak Supasorn said the reopening initiative -- Phuket Sandbox -- is expected to attract 30,000-40,000 tourists per month with long-haul markets being the main target.

He said seven-day tour packages in Phuket will cost around 150,000-200,000 baht per person, which is significantly higher than average spending per of around 50,000 baht per trip prior to the outbreak.

Tourists have to board a direct flight to the island to ensure safety, but if time slots at the airport are fully booked, tourists can transit at Suvarnabhumi airport via a sealed terminal.

Continues below

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[macaroni21]

I wondered where the "129,000 international tourists" were from. That's about 1,400 a day. This led me to wonder which cities still have "direct" flights to Phuket. I found https://www.flightconnections.com/flights-to-phuket-hkt and from there, this map dated 14 May 2021. Chinese cities stand out, but the three most worrying routes are the three from In dia. That saiid, Thailand banned arrivals from India late April, so why are there still flights? 

[spoon]

It says if time slot are full, can transit at bkk airport. My main turn off is the cost of 7 days in phuket. At 150k-200k baht, thats 22k - 28k a day, way above my budget. 

[vinapu]

1 hour ago, spoon said:

 At 150k-200k baht, that's 22k - 28k a day, way above my budget. 

you are right, I'd say thank you but , no thank you to that, 7 LT  a day,  that's insane

[gerefan]

2 hours ago, macaroni21 said:

I wondered where the "129,000 international tourists" were from. That's about 1,400 a day.

Flight schedules are notoriously fickle. Airlines cancel flights at a whim.The map even shows flights from Australia which is closed!

Nothing can be trusted nowadays.

[yourlonelies]

Maybe there would be no tourists from China in 2021. 

Because though Chinese could quarantine-free fly to Phuket, but they must be confronted with the 14-21 days quarantine when they come back to China, and this quarantine is truly strict as everyone will be sent to special quarantine hotels by special cars when they landed on Chinese airport, and would not be allowed to come out the hotels until the quarantine ends. In order to control the pandemic, such strict quarantine policy has been conducted since early 2020 and never changed till now, so basically recent years Chinese would not go abroad unless there are some urgent needs like work, study and etc. In a nutshell, short vacation like Phuket (most Chinese cities are only 3-5 hours fly from Thailand, so the typical Thailand vacation for Chinese tends to be within a week) is not available for Chinese because the strict back-to-China quarantine policy, abroad trip only worth it when it is super long.

Furthermore, just as some forum members mentioned above, schedules in the pic may be fake so we could not totally trust it. 

 

[Guest]

Anyone seriously planning a trip can look at candidate flights, then go to FLIGHTRADAR24.COM to check what has actually been flying recently.    

That worked for me.     I think the free version goes back one week, so if anyone is thinking of a trip in the summer, start checking it out a couple of weeks before booking.  Or pay the fees.

[spoon]

14 hours ago, vinapu said:

you are right, I'd say thank you but , no thank you to that, 7 LT  a day,  that's insane

I dont know what they are thinking. Itll be much cheaper for me to have an all-inclusive sea water villa at maldives for 7 days. Would be interesting to know what thats 7 days package will be like though.

[PeterRS]

This sounds like yet another of the many predictions made by all manner of Thai officials involved directly and indirectly in tourism over the past half year. All those turned out to be fictions. With the country now in the midst of its worst wave of the pandemic, serious doubts that its tracking and tracing is as effective as it was in the first wave and mass vaccination still some way on the horizon, this plan is cloud cuckoo land again.

[10tazione]

Checking the arrivals at Phuket Airport there is one direct flight from Singapore twice a week and all other flights fro BKK/DMK only. Doesn't look like high demand, neither national nor international.

[macaroni21]

21 minutes ago, 10tazione said:

Checking the arrivals at Phuket Airport there is one direct flight from Singapore twice a week and all other flights fro BKK/DMK only. Doesn't look like high demand, neither national nor international.

So.... is the "129,000 international arrivals" to be believed at all? We know the forward projections are mostly wishul thinking. Might past "data" also be wishful thinking? Reminds me of one toyboy who, in the space of two days, told me (a) he had been to university, (b) he had not gone beyond high school, and (c) he was from Lao and "there are no schools in Lao", though I'll grant that maybe (c) is not mutually exclusive from (a) or (b).

[iendo]

On 5/14/2021 at 9:53 AM, spoon said:

He said seven-day tour packages in Phuket will cost around 150,000-200,000 baht per person, which is significantly higher than average spending per of around 50,000 baht per trip prior to the outbreak.

Regardless of the price, I wonder how many people willing to travel to Thailand now would be interested in a tour-package.

[anddy]

On 5/14/2021 at 2:53 PM, spoon said:

He said seven-day tour packages in Phuket will cost around 150,000-200,000 baht per person, which is significantly higher than average spending per of around 50,000 baht per trip prior to the outbreak.

are these tour packages mandatory to be able to take advantage of the quarantine-free entry? 

If yes, then the whole project of course is just a mirage and will not materialize

If no, then you should go @spoon  

[spoon]

Ill wait for chonburi and bangkok. Phuket is low on my list haha.

[anddy]

5 minutes ago, spoon said:

Ill wait for chonburi and bangkok. Phuket is low on my list haha.

I know I know, I mean just as a gateway to get into BKK after 7 days  in Phuket  

[spoon]

Im not even willing to suffer the 7 days i  phuket since i might only stay 2 weeks max. Having to spend 7 days in pattaya on the other hand is a piece of cake lol

[Guest]

3 hours ago, spoon said:

Im not even willing to suffer the 7 days i  phuket since i might only stay 2 weeks max. Having to spend 7 days in pattaya on the other hand is a piece of cake lol

Is it that bad ?     It's over a decade since I visited Patong Beach, but they did have a few gay gogo bars at the time.

[spoon]

45 minutes ago, z909 said:

Is it that bad ?     It's over a decade since I visited Patong Beach, but they did have a few gay gogo bars at the time.

No idea if its bad or not, but since i only will have 2 weeks max, id rather be in pattaya and bangkok, especially these two places are what i missed the most. If its my regular trip precovid, id probably consider a 3-4 days trip there with a boy. 

[anddy]

5 hours ago, spoon said:

Im not even willing to suffer the 7 days i  phuket since i might only stay 2 weeks max. Having to spend 7 days in pattaya on the other hand is a piece of cake lol

hehe yeah I hear ya.... Though Pattaya won't be much fun these days, either  

[anddy]

On 5/14/2021 at 2:53 PM, spoon said:

People receive Covid-19 vaccines in Phuket. The island is rushing to vaccinate locals ahead of the reopening initiative slated for July 1. (Photo by Achadthaya Chuenniran)

This has been stated many times and of it course makes sense to have at least 70% of the Phuket population vaccinated before they open the sandbox in their target date of July 1st.

However, this is contradicted by this:

Quote

About 300,000 doses of the Sinovac vaccine will be allocated to Phuket by the end of this month. More than 440,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be provided by August to ensure vaccination reaches up to 70% of the population.

Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2117775/phuket-eases-travel-restrictions (last paragraph)

So that implies the 70% won't be reached before September. Bye bye sandbox....

[NIrishGuy]

3 hours ago, z909 said:

Is it that bad ?     It's over a decade since I visited Patong Beach, but they did have a few gay gogo bars at the time.

Certainly when watching a few videos last night of a 50 year old guy who had relocated there from the US about 6 weeks ago the place is a ghost town !  Everywhere closed up, restaurants that are open are closing by 9pm, no alcohol being served, bars are closed, gyms closed, shops closed - and closed DOWN and basically street after street shuttered and locked up.   He has been told by the Thai's there "oh but it'll all be great again as all open again by the Government on the 1st of June as the tourists are coming back on that day" - I fear they are in for a bad shock ! :-(    He has also spoken to other locals there who have told him whether shutters come up or not is almost irrelevant as alot ( MANY) of the staff and residents of the City have returned home to their villages and wont be returning anytime soon no matter what happens now.  

He has actually posted now that he feels it's so bad that he's now actively looking to relocate to live somewhere else, totally outside of Thailand as the current state of Phuket certainly wasn't what he signed up for ( this even though I and plenty of other people did try to warn him what he was letting himself in for by going in the first place!)   

[Boy69]

58 minutes ago, NIrishGuy said:

He has actually posted now that he feels it's so bad that he's now actively looking to relocate to live somewhere else, totally outside of Thailand as the current state of Phuket certainly wasn't what he signed up for ( this even though I and plenty of other people did try to warn him what he was letting himself in for by going in the first place!)   

All I can say is he is total stupid not to make basic homework checking what is going on before making such a substantial desicion to relocate to Phuket,Every YouTube video shows that Phuket collapsed as turist destination many locals left back to their villages and the rest who stayed there are struggling. the current situation in Phuket is distressing . If you need a proof :

 

 

 

 

[NIrishGuy]

13 hours ago, Boy69 said:

All I can say is he is total stupid ..........

All I can tell you is that he is American and "no one is going to tell him what to do" and "it's his right to move wherever he wants and he'll just deal with whatever he finds when he gets there as it couldn't be THAT bad" and "Im sick of being told what to do here in the US and having to wear stupid masks that dont work so I'm going to Thailand where I wont be told what to do every two minutes and my right to chose will be respected"      

HA !!! Hilarious then that one of his first video blog posts thereafter was to complain that he was being "forced" to now "wear 'a stupid mask" again in Thailand "and it was a nonsense and this was just the Thai Government trying to control the people just like in the US "  - meanwhile two weeks later lockdown took place and even then he couldn't / wouldn't see any correlation between those two facts and was just angry that his "rights" were being trampled on "again" and repeated how it was all a Thai government conspiracy by the elite to control the people for political reasons.    

Quite funny too as before he departed the US several people had asked / goaded him online as to was he going to Thailand to find "a girl" and he was very offended and made lots of speeches about "not all of us are like that you know, that's NOT whyI'm relocating there" and stating his aims where more about perhaps doing charity work to "help the poor Thai locals" ( not in terms of Covid mind just in general there by the way as they obviously needed it as they "looked so poor".     So it was hilarious to then watch as literally on his FIRST full day on the beach when released from quarantine he was posted a video, where a nice (attractive) young Thai lady "|just happened to bump into him and  speak with him ' as "wow, these Thai's are SO friendly to us US citizens and they love us and they love America it seems"  (apparently )  - and then listen love on his video to the whole "hello, what your name, how long you stay routine being played out "live" ending in him issuing an invite for dinner later that night :-).  BUT he stressed this lady "is different" and did not seem like the usual Thai girls you see in bars but seemed very respectable and upper class. ( perhaps he's right about that I dont know)

Either way, the bottom line is that she's now in every video he makes, every day 24.7 and "at his request" she volunteered to take time out of her busy day him to take him to a local state school and after him witnessing "the poor Thai children who had nothing", he made a sizeable donation to help those same "poor children" to the teacher. His new lady also apparently has several other ideas lined up for him too as to where she can take him so give over some more money to other poor Thai's  :-)  

So, he's very pleased and he's posting how pleased he is as he's finding "all Thai's so warn and welcoming everywhere he goes when giving out his money" ( during a lockdown when they've no other income no less - they must have thought that Buddha literally sent them a money angel all the way direct from the USA  )   

But as for your "he is totally stupid" thought...... I couldn't possibly comment ! lol  

Either way I've a feeling that his is a story that's going to run and run somehow :)

Good luck to him !

 

 

[spoon]

Sometimes people will only learn when they make mistakes. While there are people who never learn from their mistakes.