Phuket to host first travel bubble ‘villa quarantine’ tourists to Thailand
By The Phuket News
Wednesday 17 February 2021, 04:57PM
https://www.thephuketnews.com/ph ... -thailand-79053.php
Dr Taweesilp announced the news during the CCSA’s daily update on the COVID-19 situation broadcast from Government House in Bangkok this morning.
“The tourists will arrive on a flight from Indonesia. They will be arriving as a ‘travel bubble’ and will have already been swab tested [for COVID-19] five to six times before they arrive here,” he said.
“They are rich and coming to Phuket on a charter flight on Feb 21 [this Sunday], as the Communicable Disease Committee of Phuket has already approved their arrival,” he added.
“We have all information about them including their names and nationalities. Members of the group come from America, Canada, Denmark, Brazil, France and Ukraine,” Dr Taweesilp explained.
The 70 foreign tourists will observe ‘villa quarantine’ for 14 days at the Sr Panwa resort, on Phuket’s east coast, Dr Taweesilp noted.
“The tourists had asked Sri Panwa management to allow them to quarantine in their rooms for five days and after that to allow them to observe the quarantine in the resort areas, as they wanted to use the resort facilities.
”They [Sri Panwa management] in turn asked us if this could be allowed. The CCSA has approved this kind of quarantine for a long time, but we never had any group of tourists coming like this. This will be our first time,” Dr Taweesilp said.
However, Dr Taweesilp also explained, “We have already warned the representative of the resort to be strict on enforcing the [COVID-19 preventative] measures that they have presented to us.”
“This quarantine will be similar to the players who joined the international volleyball competition that we held recently, and found no players infected,” Dr Taweesilp said.
“This villa quarantine will be a good example. The CCSA has already reviewed their [COVID control] measures and given feedback to the resort representatives in order to make the measures as good as possible,” he added.
“Welcoming this group to a ‘villa quarantine’ will boost confidence in our tourism among the tourists around the world.
“If there are no infected, or if some of them are infected but receive good treatment in our country, Thailand will become a popular destination in this New Normal world,” Dr Taweesilp said.
