Phuket Sandbox Program Drives Travelers to Thailand

One month after the start of the Phuket Sandbox program, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) shared the first results along with the number of arrivals and revenues received by Phuket hotels. Officially launched on 1 July 2021, the Phuket Sandbox program is aimed to attract international guests to the region that traditionally heavily depends on tourism. In just one month, Phuket welcomed more than 14,000 tourists from different parts of the world. These foreign guests generated an income of 829 million Baht for the local economy.

Over the course of the month, 14,055 tourists visited Phuket. The United States is the biggest source market with 1,802 arrivals from this country, followed by the UK (1,558 visitors), Israel (1,455 visitors), Germany (847 visitors), and France (839 visitors). According to TAT, as many as 100,000 foreign visitors are expected to arrive in Phuket in the period from July to September 2021. Together, they may generate up to 9 billion Baht for the local economy.

The Phuket Sandbox program allows fully vaccinated travelers to enter Phuket without any quarantine requirement. Guests can enjoy their vacation in Thailand and are not locked in their hotels in Phuket. To deliver foreign travelers, Thai Airways International launched direct international flights from many large cities, including London, Paris, Copenhagen, Zurich, and Frankfurt. Additionally, there are direct flights from Singapore by Singapore Airlines, Tel Aviv by EL AL Israel Airlines, from Doha by Qatar Airlines, Abu Dhabi by Etihad Airways, and from Dubai by Emirates.

SHA Plus certified hotels, which participate in the sandbox offering, had 190,843 nights booked in July 2021. There are already 109,694 room night bookings for August and 9,182 room nights booked for September. In total, current room nights booked for the third quarter of 2021 reach 309,719. As the actual number of booked room nights in July was significantly bigger than the number of advance bookings (190,843 vs. 106,883), we can expect far better results for August and September.

Here are the biggest spending categories of Phuket guests. Out of 829 million Baht of the generated revenue, 282 million were spent on hotel rooms. Products and services generated 194 million Baht, followed by food and beverage spending (175 million), and 124 million Baht spent on health and medical services. The average cost of a Phuket vacation was 58,982 Baht in July 2021.