Koh Samui’s tourism hopes pinned on international travellers

[Thaiger]

by Bill Barnett, c9hotelworks.com It’s baby steps at the moment as Thailand’s Robinson Crusoe-inspired, island-focused, international travel reopening plan rolls out in Koh Samui from July 15.  Unlike the Phuket Sandbox program for vaccinated travellers, the Samui Plus sealed-route will test the water with a hybrid approach of 3 days in a hotel quarantine scenario and then allows visitor’s island-wide free access from the 4th day onwards. In anticipation of overseas travelers flying to the idyllic holiday island in the Gulf of Thailand over 60 hotels have been certified in the SHA Plus safety and health program according to C9 Hotelworks […]

The post Koh Samui’s tourism hopes pinned on international travellers  appeared first on Thaiger News.

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[Dedinbed]

29 minutes ago, Thaiger said:

Thailand’s Robinson Crusoe-inspired, island-focused, international travel reopening plan rolls out in Koh Samui from July 15.  Unlike the Phuket Sandbox program for vaccinated travellers, the Samui Plus sealed-route will test the water with a hybrid approach of 3 days in a hotel quarantine scenario and then allows visitor’s island-wide free access from the 4th day onwards.

Will it be done by Friday .. 

Still incorporating the word quarantine .. 

Try again .. 

[JamesE]

It's not "free access" it's  sealed route. Transport, guide, and destination must all be SHA+. Plus your initial hotel must be a Samui Extra Plus (AKA: ALQ) facility. This isn't gonna be cheap kids.

[Bluesofa]

5 minutes ago, Dedinbed said:

Will it be done by Friday .. 

Still incorporating the word quarantine .. 

Try again .. 

Quasimodo?

[EdwardV]

“Demand has remained strong and is now demonstrated” - that’s a lot of smoke you are blowing up skirts Bill. Phuket has hardly proven anything other than few are willing to come. The daily average is some 350 and it’s tending downward. Considering the projection was 1,100 per day it hardly demonstrates your claim. The Samui numbers to date are atrocious, less than 100 confirmed through September. I get you are trying to prime the pump, but no amount of lipstick is going to make this pig look good. 

[gummy]

Just now, Mike-Hunt said:

Quasimodo?

Don't give me the hump

[Bluesofa]

4 minutes ago, gummy said:

Don't give me the hump

More tea vicar?  One hump or two?

[BookShe]

16 minutes ago, EdwardV said:

“Demand has remained strong and is now demonstrated” - that’s a lot of smoke you are blowing up skirts Bill. Phuket has hardly proven anything other than few are willing to come. The daily average is some 350 and it’s tending downward. Considering the projection was 1,100 per day it hardly demonstrates your claim. The Samui numbers to date are atrocious, less than 100 confirmed through September. I get you are trying to prime the pump, but no amount of lipstick is going to make this pig look good. 

Demand is strong? More like pathetic. Yes indeed some people wanna come back, but the average 300 daily arrivals aren't going to make TAT's predictions of 6,000,000 arrivals by year's end. It requires 20,000 days or a mere 54.8 years for this to be true. This program with all the restrictions should have been implemented 6 months ago when Thailand was relatively free of covid and the risk that incoming travelers will spread the virus was imminent. Things changed. With 10,000 local infections, the chance that fully vaccinated tourists are posing a risk to Thailand is laughable. It's the other way around.

[TobyAndrews]

This hotel expert Bill Barnet is so positive, if he had been on the Titanic when it was sinking, he would have run to his cabin for his swimming costume

[BookShe]

11 minutes ago, TobyAndrews said:

This hotel expert Bill Barnet is so positive, if he had been on the Titanic when it was sinking, he would have run to his cabin for his swimming costume

 

Dear all. Please try to refrain from using the word positive, as it has had a different meaning lately. :)

It should read: This hotel expert Bill Barnet is so optimistic

 

[Chaimai]

2 minutes ago, BookShe said:

Dear all. Please try to refrain from using the word positive, as it has had a different meaning lately. :)

It should read: This hotel expert Bill Barnet is so optimistic

 

 

 

It was worse in the days of HIV !!

[Stardust]

This bubble burst already because Thailand became a high risk country. It will be a hard experience for many that living in a lala bubble and reality is not the same. It is time to come quickly back to any logic, common sense, responsibilty and a competent management from the country to save lifes, the economy and the country. Thaitinac is not unsinkable , sorry to wake you up.

[Bluesofa]

27 minutes ago, BookShe said:

Dear all. Please try to refrain from using the word positive, as it has had a different meaning lately. :)

It should read: This hotel expert Bill Barnet is so optimistic

OK, perhaps he's optimistic he won't become positive?

[Objectivance]

Edited July 16, 2021 by Objectivance

[Stonker]

3 hours ago, Thaiger said:

Thailand’s Robinson Crusoe-inspired, island-focused, international travel reopening plan rolls out in Koh Samui from July 15.

"Robinson Crusoe-inspired" ?

 

Unless you're talking about being lonely and dreaming of going home, that's about the strangest thing you've written - and you've given yourself plenty of competition.

[Stonker]

3 hours ago, Thaiger said:

Samui Plus sealed-route will test the water with a hybrid approach of 3 days in a hotel quarantine scenario and then allows visitor’s island-wide free access from the 4th day onwards.

No it doesn't - that's not correct at all.

3 hours ago, Thaiger said:

Over 60 hotels have been certified in the SHA Plus safety and health program according to C9 Hotelworks research.

Then C9 Hotelworks needs to do more research.

3 hours ago, Thaiger said:

Over 2,300 international arrivals have come to the island ...

Since when? This month? This year?

3 hours ago, Thaiger said:

... low daily occupancy numbers has already grown up to 10% ...

No it hasn't.  10% occupancy on  Phuket would mean that 8,500 of Phuket's 85,000 rooms are occupied.

They're not.

 

It's one thing to be positive, and to only quote yourself / get in a plug for C9 four times, but any credibility has long gone.

[Stonker]

3 hours ago, Thaiger said:

 ...three peaks in Koh Samui, where levels reach beyond the bare minimum – Mid-October 2020 for the long weekend, New Year’s Eve, and most recently the Songkran holiday ...

I nearly missed this.

 

Peaks of what?  Occupancy or Covid-19 levels?

 

I'm not suggesting international tourists will bring Covid-19 with them, although the percentage arriving infected in Phuket is far higher than the national average and more than the number of local cases needed in Phuket to close the sandbox, but that the peaks match three times can hardly be coincidence.