PHUKET: Foreigners staying in the country on any form of tourist visa will be allowed to repeatedly renew their permits to stay with immigration for periods of 30 days at a time after the ‘visa amnesty’ ends on Sept 26, the Immigration Bureau announced today (Sept 3).

The Tourism Authority of Thailand says plans to re-open Phuket to foreign tourists are likely to be delayed as a result of the country’s first local case of Covid-19 in over 3 months. TAT governor, Yuthasak Supasorn, was speaking as officials visited the island to meet with local businesses and discuss disease prevention measures and preparations for a scheduled October 1 opening, under tight restrictions.

The government had been hoping to allow around 200 Australian and New Zealand visitors to come to Phuket, provided they tested negative for Covid-19 prior to departure and carried out 14 days’ quarantine on arrival. After 14 days, if the plan had gone ahead, the travellers would be free to leave their quarantine accommodation and travel around Phuket, although travel elsewhere in Thailand would require an additional 7 days’ quarantine… or so the ‘plan’ went.

Unfortunately, this plan failed to take into account that Australians are currently not allowed leave their country and the New Zealand government is advising its citizens not to travel overseas unless it is an urgent matter. In any case, it now looks like the plan, aka. the “Phuket Model”, has hit another bump in the road as authorities confirm the Kingdom’s first case of community transmission after 100 days of zero community transmissions.

Mr Phiphat said a concern was poor communication of the tourism issues “that may not be 100% complete”, which he said would likely delay the launch of the Phuket Model to allow tourists to return, evne with precautionary measures to prevent an outbreak of COVID-19 on the island.

“I believe that the Phuket Model is likely to not start on Oct 1, mainly due to fear among Phuket people,” he said.

Mr Phiphat also said that he recognised that “about 90% of the income generated in the province is from tourism”.

A severely scaled down version of the so-called Phuket Model is still on the table for the opening up of Thailand to foreign tourists, a report by Bangkok Biz News suggested.

He said that the plan to start the model by October 1st would not be met but he hoped that a limited version will be in place for the last two months of the year when "tourists traditionally seek the warmth of Thailand to escape the winter".

He mentioned a three stage plan that would see only one to three flights landing from abroad in Phuket per week with a cap of 300 tourists for a trial period.