“Phuket Sandbox” program serves as experiment for tourism industry

This blog was written by Trove Associate, Maeve.

Last week, Thailand launched the “Phuket Sandbox” program, allowing fully vaccinated travelers from 63 low to medium-risk countries to visit Phuket and travel freely within the island. Among other minor restrictions, the plan requires travelers to obtain a negative PCR test 72 hours before departure and to stay at a Sandbox Hotel (SHA+ certified with over 70 percent of staff vaccinated.) After these initial 14 days, visitors will also be allowed to travel freely throughout the rest of Thailand. The inauguration of this plan aligned with a surge in Covid cases to a record high for Thailand as a whole. So, while Phuket has managed to vaccinate a high percentage of their island (84 percent of the population have received their first vaccine dose and 67 percent have received both doses as of July 5th) and keep covid numbers low, the Sandbox program serves as somewhat of an experiment in the tourism industry. 

Although flights are currently limited, this is very exciting news for those who have been anxiously awaiting a trip to the beautiful beaches of Phuket. Not to mention, this is great news for the people of the island. Pre-pandemic, the tourism sector accounted for 95 percent of Phuket’s economy, but only 20 percent of Thailand’s as a whole. According to the Tourism Authority of Thailand, in the first five days of the launch, the island saw 32 inbound flights and close to 1,900 tourists. In the month of July, it is expected to rise to 426 inbound flights to the island and over 11,800 travelers. By the end of September, Phuket will see around 100,000 tourists. 

Following the reboot of Phuket’s tourism industry, Thai authorities are now looking into the future to hopefully reopen the Surat Thai province by July 15th. This means that the popular tourist spot Samui Island will be accessible to travelers under similar, relatively lenient, circumstances. From September 1st onward, travelers can expect to see the cities of Krabi, Chiang Mai, and Pattaya start opening up - followed by the Thai capital of Bangkok opening on October 1st.

Visit our Instagram account @trovetourism to continue to stay up to date on what countries are beginning to reopen to the world as well as the latest tourism and travel updates.

Israel begins new uni-lateral travel deals with Greece and Cyprus

Israel has been leading the world in its aggressive COVID vaccination plan. 4 million of its 9 million residents have already received the first of the two Pfizer-BioNTech shots within a few short months. The country is hoping to have everyone over the age of 16 vaccinated by the end of March. Israel’s vaccination campaign has been an impressive benchmark for the rest for the world to follow, but Israel is also leading the world in innovative bilateral tourism deals. 

Israel has recently signed tourism deals with two of its Mediterranean neighbors, Greece and Cyprus. The deals allow vaccinated tourists of Greece and Cyprus to travel freely to Israel, and vice versa, without having to quarantine. The lack of a self-isolation period is massive and provides a glimmer of hope that a sense of normalcy is on the horizon. 

The countries will be working together to reopen their economies to tourism as their vaccination efforts are underway and cases of COVID-19 continue to decline. President Nicos Anastasiades is also hoping to work with Israel’s Ichilov hospital on a new COVID-19 treatment and said that Cyprus would participate in clinical trials. 

Israel is also said to be negotiating similar agreements with the United Kingdom, Estonia, Romania, Serbia, Georgia, and Seychelles. With historic peace deals made recently with the AUE, Bahrain, and Morocco in recent months, Israel could also look to negotiate similar tourism deals with these countries as well. 

The deals are a rare win-win scenario for all parties involved. Tourists who have been patient in wanting to travel over the past year can now do so safely and without the need to self-isolate. Countries who have experienced economic hardships as a result of the pandemic can aid each other’s tourism industries by satisfying all this pent-up demand. 

These bilateral tourism deals also highlight the confidence in the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine despite the emergence of new global variants. Early data in Israel has shown the Pfizer vaccine to be over 95% effective after both doses and experts are cautiously optimistic about Israel’s vaccine progress. US infectious disease expert Dr. Fauci said, “Israel has a remarkable diminution of cases associated with the efficacy of their vaccine.” The effectiveness of the vaccine has allowed Israel to start easing lockdown restrictions for those who have been fully immunized. 

The only concern that remains is how other countries can hope to keep pace with Israel in vaccinating their populations. Israel has been so far ahead of most countries that they may have to wait for others to catch up with their vaccine efforts. It seems that the only thing holding Israel’s complete return to normalcy back is the slow pace of other nations in administering the COVID-19 vaccine. 

As Israel, Cyprus, and Greece begin to implement these tourism agreements, it is critical to develop solid communications and messaging that underscores the safety in this tourist circuit. In addition, closely monitoring tourist sentiment online through sentiment analysis tools will allow for all three tourism authorities to track tourist feedback at a local, regional or national level as well as to develop new visitor standards. At Trove, our strategic planning and online marketing & social media offerings provide solid footing for any evolving destination looking for help implementing new policy or strategy. 

- For more news, contact the Trove Team