(TAN): The Tourism Authority of Thailand’s (TAT) roadmap to reopen six major tourist provinces — Phuket, Krabi, Phang Nga, Surat Thani (Ko Samui), Chon Buri (Pattaya) and Chiang Mai — to foreign tourists who have received two doses of Covid-19 vaccine is going ahead as scheduled, TAT said in a statement.
Phuket will be the first destination to lift quarantine requirements for vaccinated foreign tourists under the ‘Phuket Sandbox’ programme, starting from July 1, 2021. Tourists will be required to spend the first seven days on the island, before travelling to other Thai destinations.
In preparation to welcome vaccinated foreign tourists, authorities are working on vaccination programme to safely achieve herd immunity against Covid-19 for 70% of Phuket’s population, including residents, workers in tourism-related businesses, and migrant workers.
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Nationwide, the government is striving to efficiently administer the Covid-19 situation and acquire additional vaccines to reach the target of 100 million doses to vaccinate 50 million people across Thailand by the end of the year.
Thailand started the preliminary vaccination programme in late February with the first 200,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine from Sinovac and 117,000 doses from AstraZeneca. The inoculation project continued with 800,000 more doses of Sinovac vaccine in March and one million more in April.
Bangkok, Phuket, Chon Buri which includes Pattaya, Chiang Mai, and Surat Thani which includes Ko Samui, Ko Phangan and Ko Tao, as well as eight other high-risk provinces were being prioritised in the rollout of the first vaccine doses.
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The government expects the nationwide vaccine rollout to complete within four to seven months, or between September and December, 2021.
With the vaccination programme in Thailand going ahead as planned, the reopening roadmap will also go ahead as scheduled. Apart from Phuket, Krabi, Phang Nga, Surat Thani (Ko Samui), Chon Buri (Pattaya) and Chiang Mai, other destinations in the reopening pipeline include Bangkok, Phetchaburi, and Prachuap Khiri Khan (Hua Hin).
