Stuck in the sandbox: Thailand’s strict, inconsistent Covid-19 rules frustrate Phuket tourists
- The Thai island is one of the very few destinations in the world where tourists can go on holiday without having to quarantine
- However, visitors have stayed away due to the constantly changing rules and complicated paperwork
The sky over Phuket clears, just in time for sunset. A man hurriedly sets out plastic chairs in the sand on Patong Beach in the hopes that a passing tourist might want to sit and sip a nice cold drink while watching the natural spectacle. But no one comes.
It’s the same elsewhere: Once-full beaches have become lonely bays, temples and monuments that attracted many visitors are now deserted.
But so far, the tourists have stayed away. In the first six weeks, there were about 17,000 – far less than the minimum of 100,000 between July and September that the governor of Thailand’s tourism authority had hoped.
And even that figure is a small fraction of what it used to be: Before the pandemic, over 9 million people visited Phuket annually; 80 per cent of the island’s income is from tourism.
“Most of them were definitely put off by the complicated paperwork beforehand and the strict rules,” said Hardy Wutke, a train driver from near Berlin who came to see his partner of 17 years, Watt, after they had not been able to see each other since March 2020.
“For two or three weeks’ holiday, it’s all extremely time-consuming,” he said.