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Thailand: despite the reopening of borders, Phuket remains a ghost town

2022-01-06T17:20:16.092Z


REPORT - Hit hard by the collapse of global tourism, Thailand is struggling to restart a sector responsible for 20% of its GDP.


In Phuket (Thailand)

Sitting facing the turquoise sea, sheltered behind a surgical mask, Siri, 52, scans the empty beach with a desperate air.

“Before the pandemic, tourists were fighting at 7 am to get a place,

remembers this rental of beach chairs in Patong, the main seaside resort on the island of Phuket.

Today I only rent 5% of my sites.

It's a thousand times worse than the 2004 tsunami

(which killed 500 people in Phuket, editor's note)

, because the economy had only been impacted for a few months,

adds Sha Treesha, a tourist guide posted nearby.

We have been slowly dying for almost two years. ”

Read also

Thïlande will welcome this year forty times fewer tourists than in 2019

The reopening of Thailand's borders to international tourism on November 1 was not enough to reverse the trend.

Eighth most visited nation in the world in 2019 with nearly 40 million foreign tourists, the Land of Smiles will hardly have welcomed more than 400,000 in 2021. It has seen nearly 55 billion evaporate ...

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Source: lefigaro

All business articles on 2022-01-06

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