Phuket Was Poised for Tourism Comeback. A Covid Surge Dashed These Hopes.

PHUKET, Thailand – Around the corner from the teeth whitening clinic and tattoo parlor with offerings in Russian, Hebrew and Chinese, near the al fresco restaurant with indifferent fried rice that cheers sunburned tourists or tired go-go dancers should, the Hooters sign is lost its H.

The sign in this distinctive orange comic font is now simply “ooters”.

Like so much on Patong Beach, the shabby epicenter of sybaritic Thailand, Hooters is “temporarily closed”. Other facilities around the beach on Phuket Island are more tightly closed, their metal grids and padlocks rusted or their contents ripped out except for the fittings, leaving only the carcasses of a tourism industry ravaged by the coronavirus epidemic.

The sun, which typically draws 15 million people to Phuket each year, remains unforgiving in a downturn. The rays whiten the “For Rent” signs on remote villas and the scorching greens on neglected golf courses. They exposed the emptiness of the streets of Patong, where tuk-tuk drivers once roamed and served as freebies for snorkeling trips, peep shows or Thai massages.

Just a few weeks ago, Phuket seemed ready for a comeback. After a year with virtually no foreign tourists coming to Thailand, the national government decided that Phuket would welcome vaccinated visitors from July without the need to quarantine them. The project was called Phuket Sandbox.

But Thailand is now hit by its worst Covid-19 outbreak since the pandemic began, spread in part by well-heeled Thais who partied in Phuket and Bangkok with no social distancing. The confirmed daily number of cases – albeit low by global standards – has risen from 26 on April 1 to more than 2,000 three weeks later, in a country that saw a total of around 4,000 cases in early December.

Strict quarantines, bans, vigilance at borders and the strict use of masks have been in place in Thailand for months kept the virus in checkeven though the economy has suffered. But even as the last few weeks have seen repeated daily highs in the case load, the Thai government is reacting slowly.

In early April, when cases were increasing, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha responded with a verbal shrug.

“Whatever happens, happens,” he said.

Desperate to revitalize its tourism sector, Phuket, which closed its airport during a spike in covid last year, allowed people to continue domestic flights this spring even if cases hit record highs. It was only on Thursday that local authorities requested Covid-19 screening for those arriving on the island.

“If you ask me how optimistic I am, I can’t tell,” said Nanthasiri Ronnasiri, director of the Phuket Tourism Bureau. “The situation is constantly changing.”

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On April 18, Thailand’s tourism minister admitted that an opening for Phuket on July 1 appears unlikely as the plan is contingent on Covid being suppressed in Thailand.

To prepare for the Phuket sandbox, the Thai government sent many of their limited vaccines to the island in hopes of herd immunity by the summer. By mid-April, more than 20 percent of Phuket residents had been vaccinated. Nationwide, only about 1 percent of the population received the required doses.

“I’m very relieved,” said Suttirak Chaisawat, a grocer who received his Sinovac vaccine this month at a resort that was being repurposed for mass vaccination. “We all need hope for Phuket.”

While the vaccinations may have given Mr. Suttirak some optimism, the current picture remains grim.

Usually the golden sands of Patong Beach are full of foreign vacationers at this time of year.

But the beach is now almost deserted, except for a group of residents who line up for Covid tests in a mobile medical unit. Up the street a monitor lizard, a creature more crocodile than newt, was trampling across the asphalt, and little traffic obstructed the crossing.

Phuket’s half-built condominium complexes are being reclaimed by nature, always a battle in the tropics but a lost cause when developers’ money runs dry. Billboards for “Exclusive Dream Holiday Home” are stained with mold and monsoon mud.

Updated

April 24, 2021, 10:42 p.m. ET

This month’s Thai New Year period should be a dress rehearsal for Phuket’s revival. Instead of foreign backpackers or conference attendees, the hotels sought to attract high-end Thai tourists who, without the pandemic, might have decamped overseas skiing in Hokkaido, Japan, or shopping in Paris.

But instead of preparing the island for its return as a global tourist haven, the Thai New Year may have ruined the island’s chances of reopening in July.

At festivals in Patong and other beaches this month, thousands of wealthy Thais partied, fewer masks than bikini tops. For some in Thailand’s high society, Covid was viewed as something that could infect vegetable vendors or shrimp peelers, not the jet set.

But then these beach buddies started testing positive and the virus spread from luxury nightclubs in Bangkok to Phuket.

The resurgence of the virus after so many months of economic hardship is harrowing for the majority of Phuket residents who depend on foreign tourists for their livelihoods.

When a 3-year-old elephant was chewing on sugar cane nearby, Jaturaphit Jandarot was slowly swinging in his hammock. There was little else to do.

Before the pandemic, he and the other elephant handlers on the outskirts of Patong took more than 100 tourists, mostly from China, on 30-minute drives every day. There are no visitors now.

“I was very excited to hear that they will open Phuket to foreign tourists,” said Jaturaphit. “Thais don’t ride elephants.”

Regardless of the level of international travel, the elephants still need to be fed. Every month a dozen animals consume sugar cane, pineapples, and bananas worth at least $ 2,000. The 3-year-old, hardly more than a toddler in the elephant years, eats as much as the adults.

After the decline of the tin and rubber industries in Phuket, tourism grew from a few bungalows on Patong Beach in the 1970s to a global phenomenon, attracting golfers, clubbers, yachers, sex tourists and Scandinavian snowbirds.

Much of the high-end accommodation in Phuket is near the beach town of Bang Tao, a quiet Muslim-majority community where posters for upscale wine bars mix with Arabic signs for Islamic schools.

Phuket’s largest mosque is in Bang Tao, and this year the first day of Ramadan coincided with the start of the Thai New Year celebrations, a promising augur after a year of economic hardship. The night before the fast began, worshipers flocked to the mosque. Women chopped shrimp, banana blossoms and armfuls of herbs for the upcoming feast.

But at the last minute, Phuket authorities canceled mass prayers fearing the virus would spread. Iftar, the breaking of the fast, takes place in houses, not in the mosque.

When local authorities attributed Covid-19 cases on the island to the upscale beach parties, Bang Tao residents became frustrated.

“We’d like to welcome people to Phuket, of course, but if they don’t protect themselves and bring Covid here, I’ll be a little angry,” said Huda Panan, an elementary school teacher who lives behind the mosque.

Ms. Huda’s husband is a taxi driver, but he has not worked for over a year. Most of the mosque community was dependent on tourism and worked as concierges, cleaners, landscapers and water sports guides. Now some locals are selling dried fish and cleaning the mounds for fruit that they use to add wrinkles to a local curry – whatever they can do to survive.

Occasionally, Buddhist temples, churches and mosques in Phuket distribute meals to the hungry. The lines are long. The food is running out.

“We can wait a little longer for Phuket to get better,” Ms. Huda said in the heat of the day when the daily fast became long. “But not much more.”

Muktita Suhartono contributed to coverage from Bangkok.