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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the possibility of "the floodgates opening" now that we see the light at the end of the tunnel; we see the possibility of Phuket reopening for quarantine free travel for vaccinated tourists here in 2021 upcoming in July. 

A recent article from Thai Visa, that is thaivisa.com, may shed some light on this, provide some nuance. The title of the article is: The Grand Reopening? Just 20 Americans to Tourists Arrive in Phuket on July 9th. Quoting directly: "It was revealed that the first arrivals as part of the much-vaunted Phuket "sandbox" tourism reopening scheme in the southern province would include people from the USA. However it was hardly opening the floodgates; just 20 had booked to come on July 9th." I don't think there has been and I urge folks to go ahead and check that out on Thai Visa. That is an interesting article; there is a lot in there. I don't think there is a lot of question that probably tourism is going to be very truncated, at least through the rest of 2021 compared to what it has been in the past. I mean we are coming out of a really unprecedented situation and just the global demand I think for tourism is way down compared to times past. Now what does that exactly mean? It remains to be seen. I am hoping for the best that things really rev up and we see a great deal of tourism commence.

I suspect we are probably not going to see large numbers of folks until if I am guessing probably August, September before we really see a lot of numbers of people coming in. Also coincidentally, that is the timeline around which we have seen discussions of other parts of the country being reopened with some sort of quarantine free scheme. Also, it seems logical to infer that the overall heightened concern in the Government will subside as these vaccinations roll out on a more continuous basis where right now we are looking at a situation where basically we are right on the cusp of the initial rollout of this vaccine initiative and yeah there are those that have had a lot of criticism about the slow uptake of that and that is definitely topics we have discussed before. My personal opinion is it could have been done better. I think things could have gotten worse here in Thailand but it is all basically in the past so what is the point of worrying about it? Moving forward we are now seeing that the rollout is coming. I have to imagine, especially in the fourth quarter of the year, we are probably going to see a lot different attitude, just the paradigm will have shifted and I think there is going to be much more of an impetus to ease a lot of these restrictions. 

That said, we also have to look at global demand for tourism. There are certain places which have been rather crowded but certain countries I mean they cite the US, but frankly as much as I love seeing American tourists in Thailand, I think democratically they were probably one of the lower demographics of folks that were coming here by nationality. Certainly Scandinavia, a lot of Europe as far as the Western World, Australia as well which it is my understanding that with their current situation we are probably not going to see a lot of Australian tourists any time soon. 

Long story short is while I think this provides some insight as to what Phuket is probably going to look like over this summer, that is not to say that this is particularly unexpected nor should it have been unexpected. I mean again, the demand for tourism is going to be not at the heights that it was a few years ago, at least in the coming months. Hopefully, 2022 will see a real turn around in that but again it remains to be seen.