Governor Narong relayed the news to Gen Nattapon Nakpanich, Secretary-General of the National Security Council and operations head of the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), during a teleconference meeting held at the Phuket Provincial Police headquarters in Phuket Town on Tuesday (July 6).
Governor Narong explained that, as of Tuesday, 2,113 tourists had landed in Phuket on 39 flights since July 1.
He also reported that 9,483 bookings had been made by tourists staying at SHA+ hotels under the Phuket Sandbox project.
Of those bookings, 3,598, or 37.94% of the total at the time, were for hotels in the Patong area, Governor Narong said.
The second- and third-most popular were Cheng Talay and Karon, respectively, he added.
According to the Phuket Sandbox Daily Report for July 6, issued by Phuket officials, a total of 118,685 room nights had been booked under the Sandbox scheme. Of those, 108,469 (91%) were for July; 8,273 (7%) were for August; and 958 (0.8%) were for September.
The daily report for yesterday (July 7), just 24 hours later, showed an increase of 13,124 room nights booked under the Sandbox scheme, comprising 119,892 room nights booked for July; 9,745 for August; and 1,094 for September.
The July 7 report noted that so far 2,399 tourists had arrived under the Sandbox scheme since July 1. Of those, 2,181 tested negative for COVID, while 108 were awaiting test results. One person, a tourist from the UAE, had tested positive.
DOMESTIC PROTECTION
Governor Narong told Gen Nattapon that COVID protection measures had been increased at the Phuket Check Point at Tha Chatchai, where people are being checked before being allowed onto or off the island.
Measures were being considered in using technology more efficiently to allow faster checking of people passing through the checkpoint, “in order to reduce inspection time and prevent violators”, Governor Narong said.
“Since some people have used forged documents to show to the authorities, there must be a way to prevent such problems. Currently, the DEPA is in the process of working on this problem,” Governor Narong said.