With the reopening of Thailand’s tourist island, small businesses say they are behind Reuters

Gilabone Kuhakan

Phuket, Thailand (Reuters)-As the Thai government prepares to celebrate this week’s reopening to foreign tourists, many businesses on the resort island of Phuket are not so enthusiastic about the return of tourists.

Phuket is a pilot program in Thailand to restart tourism devastated by the pandemic, allowing tourists who are fully vaccinated and tested negative for the coronavirus to fly directly to the southern islands, bypassing the 14-day quarantine requirement.

But local companies said they were left behind and did not have much hope for the trickle of tourists who began to arrive on Thursday. Visitors will see a different Phuket island than the one visited by millions of people every year before the pandemic broke out.

Srangsan Thongtan of the Phuket Tourism Entrepreneur Development Association said: “They will see buildings for sale, buildings for rent, shops closed, convenience stores closed. Do you think this is a good environment for tourists? No? “He added that companies urgently need soft loans to rebuild. “It’s hard to open…We don’t have the budget, we don’t have the money to repair, paint everything to restore our business.”

An industry organization said this week that since last year, more than 2 million Thai tourism workers have been unemployed, of which 400,000 were unemployed in the first quarter of 2021. The governor of the central bank said that the tourism industry may take “more than five years” Back to normal.

Thailand lost approximately US$50 billion in tourism revenue last year, when the number of foreign tourists dropped by 83% from the nearly 40 million tourists in 2019.

Natchakanya Sanguanwong, the manager of Anchan spa, which once received hundreds of tourists every day, said that many companies will not see the income of the first tourists and they will stay in government-approved hotels.

“Our spa cannot be reopened because it requires utility bills, staff and rent,” she added.

Manish Prathap, manager of the Centara Grand Hotel, said his resort initially expected an occupancy rate of about 20%, and when the plan is implemented, the occupancy rate will double.

“Agents and guests will begin to develop trust and confidence in the Phuket Sandbox Project,” he said.

The hotel’s duty manager Kamonrat Thudphimai said she was very excited.

“I have been missing the holiday during Christmas,” she said. “We hope those moments will come back.”