Thailand's billionaire tourism minister Pipat Ratchakitprakan is prepared to declare Pattaya and Chonburi as a "sandbox" if officials there can stop one thing. - Thai Visa





Picture: Manager

 

Thailand's billionaire tourism minister Pipat Ratchakitprakan is prepared to declare Pattaya and Chonburi as a "sandbox" if officials there can stop one thing.

 

Foreigners sneaking out elsewhere.

 

A "sandbox" is the latest Thai jargon meaning an area where foreign tourists would be allowed to go where they would not have to quarantine at all. 

 

This is expected to be just for vaccinated tourists and the earliest it would start is July 1st of 2021. 

 

Picture: Manager

 

Pipat as reported by Manager said that being in a sandbox is dependent on vaccination and the readiness of Chonburi people.

 

They would need to be able to ensure that foreign tourists didn't go out of Pattaya and Chonburi.

 

So sneaking off for a night out in Bangkok, for example, would be a definite no-no. 

 

Sandbox is a term often reserved for what children play in, notes Thaivisa.

 

Pipat was at City Hall yesterday along with provincial governor Phakrathorn Thienchai and Pattaya's mayor Sontaya Kunplome on the top table at a meeting of Pattaya and Chonburi tourazzi. 

 

Anybody who is anyone in the tourism industry. 

 

Pipat outlined the current situation that 7 day quarantine will await specific foreign tourists who had received two doses of vaccine against Covid-19 under the Area Quarantine plan.

 

Ten day quarantine for those that hadn't been jabbed. 

 

Africans - 14 days. 

 

But the way forward thereafter - that's where the sandbox comes in. 

 

Sontaya chipped in that Pattaya is ready for Area Quarantine. 

 

There were already 11 hotels offering State Quarantine and 20 catering to Alternative Local State Quarantine. 

 

In addition another 20 had expressed an interest in offering Area Quarantine. 

 

He explained that two zones would be created in Pattaya - the sandbox zone and the area quarantine zone. 

 

There would be specific areas where Thais and foreigners could be together.

 

This interesting tidbit was not expanded on by Manager, notes Thaivisa.

 

Picture: Manager

 

Maybe it could mean that foreign tourists could actually go to bars and clubs if they were in the sandbox zone come July.

 

In other news Sontaya said that the tourism sector has requested up to a million doses of vaccine so that people in the industry including foreigners and foreign migrants could be vaccinated ahead of the sandbox plan.