As the countdown to the Sandbox hits seven days, resort island pays tribute to its real-life tourism attraction
    

PHUKET, THAILAND: Tourism eyes around the world are focused on a resort island in Thailand next week for the reopening of international, vaccinated travel to the Phuket Sandbox. A key emerging storyline from the island’s frenzied runaway to 1st July has been the remarkable cross sector partnerships that has become a true catalyst of change. 

 

Phuket’s private sector has massively rallied in the final days leading up to the Sandbox in support of its greatest asset, its people. The island’s rich cultural tapestry is the theme of the newly launched Welcome Back Home hospitality community collaboration.

 

One key working part of Thailand’s Sandbox scheme, has been to achieve the vaccination a baseline of over seventy percent of Phuket residents. With local government resources already stretched in fighting the Covid-19 crisis, hotels have thrown open their doors and embraced their neighborhoods in hosting vaccination centers to help achieve the numbers.

“The Sandbox has brought together various tourism organizations in a way our industry has never witnessed before,” said Laguna Phuket’s Managing Director Ravi Chandran who has experienced past events like SARS, the Asian tsunami, and the global financial crisis. 

 

“The Sandbox has broken down barriers within our industry, and the hope displayed in the determination and spirit is teaching us a true-life lesson. Welcome Back Home is our tribute to acknowledging people first and supporting our local neighbours and not just relying on Instagram-ready photo libraries.”

 

On an island that showcases some of Asia’s best beaches and world-renowned resorts, leading Phuket-based consultancy C9 Hotelworks Managing Director Bill Barnett added: “We wanted the campaign to represent the true face of our tourism industry, its people. So, we took to the streets, had conversations, and engaged with our community which has remained resilient in the face of adversity, to actively be the face of this amazing change that is about to take place.”
    

The campaign was shot by Delivering Asia Communications’ Thai photographer and videographer Thunwa Siripotisorut of over two days of traveling the length and breadth of the island visiting local villages, markets and fishing communities.

See video here: 

 

Sandbox champion and President of the Phuket Tourism Association, Bhummikitti Ruktaengam, expressed pride at how the efforts of local people had brought us to this historic point. “There will be bumps in the road but we will get there. We are working together as one, one island. The industry has never shared a vision and intent so passionately,” he said. 

 

Welcome Back Home is a unique undertaking between the Laguna Phuket, Phuket Tourist Association, Delivering Asia Communications, and C9 Hotelworks. The social media focused campaign in the lead-up to the beginning of July is highlighted by the voice and images of Phuket people who have endured the pandemic and remain ready to welcome travelers back home in the coming weeks ahead. This is the true voice of Phuket tourism.

 

- 2021-06-28

I hope not.But this is a disaster waiting to happen.

Just about everything possible has been done to make a difficult challenge worse.

"One key working part of Thailand’s Sandbox scheme, has been to achieve the vaccination a baseline of over seventy percent of Phuket residents."

 

There's a degree of disingenuousness here, as other reports have laid bare in recent weeks: as of now nowhere near seventy percent of Phuket residents have received the two shots of the vaccine and the waiting period necessary to achieve maximum protection from the virus. In any case, the figure of seventy percent has come to be assumed as a baseline for reaching so-called herd immunity, but there is no firm evidence as yet that that is indeed the case.

funny how desperation can turn previously competing groups into best friends

 

but are they desperate enough to focus on the novel idea of providing a quality experience for tourists rather than the tried and true principle of squeeze every baht out of them?

"There's a degree of disingenuousness here, as other reports have laid bare in recent weeks: as of now nowhere near seventy percent of Phuket residents have received the two shots of the vaccine and the waiting period necessary to achieve maximum protection from the virus."

 

they have just kept narrowing the definition of what a phuket resident is to get that number to generate the beloved 70% threshold

It will be doomed I,m afraid...just more BS from the money grabbers.

When I read this account of the " Welcome back Home "Phuket, I really could not believe there was so much Love and Kindness in the whole world.

But there it was ! All of it to be found in Phuket ????

Are they letting in tourists from India and the UK where Delta virus is rife????

Quote

“Welcome Back Home” 

 

Let's not too excited. I wouldn't expect there to be that many Colditz survivors left

 

X

1 hour ago, Pedrogaz said:

Are they letting in tourists from India and the UK where Delta virus is rife????

Or closer to home from Bangkok?

 

Welcome back home ... do you want to hire another jetski?

9 hours ago, webfact said:

Welcome Back Home

Welcome back home dirty foreigners who need to be tested, tracked, traced, and monitored 24/7 for their entire stay.  Oh, and don't do anything you'd do at home or you'll be arrested, fined, and deported!

9 hours ago, poskat said:

funny how desperation can turn previously competing groups into best friends

 

but are they desperate enough to focus on the novel idea of providing a quality experience for tourists rather than the tried and true principle of squeeze every baht out of them?

Probably because it's just slick TAT marketing which, like the past, has absolutely basis in reality.

3 hours ago, Pedrogaz said:

Are they letting in tourists from India and the UK where Delta virus is rife????

Yup from the UK as long as they have had both shots just been published by the Thai embassy in London

11 hours ago, webfact said:

in support of its greatest asset, its people.

 

Pesty tailor touts, dishonest taxi drivers, violent tuk tuk drivers and rude bouncers included ?

4 hours ago, connda said:

Probably because it's just slick TAT marketing which, like the past, has absolutely basis in reality.

No, this is nothing but marketing from big hotel chains, claiming to be the voice of Phuket tourism.

 

Forget the thousands of small hotels, guesthouses and other businesse who will see little or no benefit from the sandbox. Who knows when they'll be permitted to receive guests?

Has 100 percent of Phuket had at least 1 shot of their vaccines? Has the island population of 70 percent had 2 shots

of a vaccine?  I have not heard of any vaccines that are being given to any child under 12 years old, and be sure that

they can be COVID carriers as well as any teen or adult.    It is one thing to be desperate  and quite another to not care

if the virus is being spread about.    I will not be a guinea pig for any of the early sand boxes of any kind that the great

government of Thailand is offering, and backed up by loyal TAT.  I think I will wait a year and see just how successful the

Winter of 2021, 2022 if for Thailand, before I take a chance on travelling over there to be part of the Winter crowd.

  Good Luck

Geezer

Question: Do tourists in this scheme who test positive and are asymptomatic, making them a "case" end up at one of those "hospitels" potentially holding "mild cases" patients? Or do they get sent for a full obligatory two week stay in a hospital?