Unlike previous years, the shrines in Phuket Town, including the usually bustling Pud Jor Shrine, were relatively quiet with few visitors yesterday.
“Many people stopped working to hang out, increase happiness and rest so that throughout the year there are only good things and happy things for the family,” noted an official report by the Phuket office of the Public Relations Department.
However, photos provided told a different story, with very few people turning out to mark the new year.
The streets of Phuket Town have remained nigh desolate throughout the week leading up to Chinese New Year yesterday. Noticeably absent has been even Thai domestic tourists.
Vendors at the Phuket City Municipality Fresh Market 1 on Ranong Rd reported very slow sales over the weekend. The days leading up to Chinese New Year are traditionally busy, with ethnic Chinese residents buying flowers and fruit for offerings at shrines and extra food for large family gatherings.
This year, people bought only what they needed, vendors reported.
The Test & Go entry scheme reopened for bookings from international travellers yesterday, yet with its own problems in having applications from tourists approved.
Only yesterday (Feb 1) did Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) Governor Yuthasak Supasorn tell hoteliers during a meeting in preparation for the resumption of the scheme that hotels must approve a second booking by tourists which is now required under the new yet-revised-again rules which mandate a second PCR test on Day 5-6 of tourists’ stay.
Nowhere previously was it publicly reported that tourists needed to make a second booking, even if staying at the same hotel for the whole duration from Day 1 through Day 5-6 of their stay, or that hotel operators needed to go back into the administration section of the Thailand Pass website to approve the second booking.
Hotels must verify each Thailand Pass booking within 30 hours or visitors’ registration will be automatically rejected, Mr Yuthasak explained.
Meanwhile, international arrivals under the Sandbox entry scheme have been averaging only in the mid-200s per day.
The Phuket Reopening Report issued by the TAT for yesterday (Feb 1) marked 2,458 international arrivals at Phuket airport. Of those 15 entered Thailand under the Test & Go scheme, 2,439 entered under the Sandbox scheme and four entered under Alternative Quarantine requirements.
Phuket officials have yet to comment on the lack of arrivals in recent weeks, though Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew told Gen Singsuek Singprai, chairman of the ‘Senate Committee on Monitoring, Suggesting and Accelerating Reforms and the Formation and Implementation of the National Strategy’, during an online meeting last week that the average income among Phuket residents remained at B1,900 per month.
That figure had remained unchanged since first reported mid-last year.