News Forum - Koh Samui tourism officials, businesses call on government to open Sandbox registration

[Thaiger]

The Phuket Sandbox is now the only quarantine substitution programme open for registration, but those on the Gulf of Thailand island Koh Samui are calling on the government to allow the Samui Sandbox scheme to continue as usual. Since the government’s announcement yesterday on closing registration for the Test & Go quarantine exemption scheme and the Sandbox scheme, with the exception of the Phuket Sandbox, a number of people cancelled their hotel bookings, according to the director of the Tourism Association of Samui. (Those who have registered under Test & Go, or the Sandbox, can still enter through the schemes. Click […]

The story Koh Samui tourism officials, businesses call on government to open Sandbox registration as seen on Thaiger News.

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[Stonker]

32 minutes ago, atiger said:

The government doesn't care about you, even if they did allow foreigners into Samui, they would still control the number of travel passes which they currently do to limit incoming tourism.

The government don't care because they still get paid in full regardless of how many tourism operators go broke.

Neither do the rest of Thailand care about Samui's tourists - they care about their families and their livelihoods and the rest of Thailand.

[Jason]

Easy to understand why Koh Samui  would be up in arms about such a pivot by the government. I think that while Test and Go needs to be shelved temporarily, the sandbox scheme would be enough to curb Omicron. If it can be maintained in Phuket, it should be the same for Koh Samui!

[Pete424]

Thailand Pass -Sandbox for all locations is not accessible. Trying to sort TP for Phuket Sandbox, looks like they shut the whole lot down, unintentionally.... I assume.

[FunkmasterWhyLee]

i am super pissed at samui hotels. it was confusing to book the right hotel including the pcr-test and airport pickup at agoda. they closed the thailand pass options much earlies before the site to register for test&go. after canceling, they do not pay back the money. if the businesses in samui f*** directly with the tourists, they also should suffer the consequences.
i got a sha-plus+ hotel in bangkok for half the price in sukhumvit road comparing to koh samui, including airport pickup and pcr-test. it seems to me, that samui is purely a rip-off island. protected airport that does not allow other airlines to land etc.
 

Edited December 22, 2021 by FunkmasterWhyLee