A teleconference was held on September 22 to discuss post-pandemic cooperation between Vietnam’s the northern province of Quang Ninh and Thailand’s Phuket, especially in re-opening tourism markets.
An overview of the conference. (Photo: baoquangninh.com.vn)
Speaking at the event, Director of the Representative Office of the Tourism Authority of Thailand in Vietnam Ratiwan Boonprakong introduced the “Phuket Sandbox” programme which aims to prevent COVID-19 transmission between tourists and local residents.
From July 1 to August 29, the programme welcomed over 25,800 visitors spending 450,806 nights and travelling to Phuket on 283 chartered flights, mostly from the US, UK, Israel, France, Germany, United Arab Emirates and Switzerland.
Director of the Quang Ninh provincial Tourism Department Pham Ngoc Thuy suggested Thailand continue creating favourable conditions for Udon Thani province to effectively carry out an action plan within the framework of tourism cooperation in the heritage triangle of Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay, Thailand’s Ban Chiang and Laos’ Luang Prabang, as well as help Quang Ninh’s tourism sector explore opportunities and promote destinations.
He also proposed the two local tourism sectors establish an information sharing mechanism and study building a suitable tourism cooperation model.
Quang Ninh officially resumed its intra-provincial tourism from September 21 and plans to welcome back visitors from other localities without local transmissions within 14 days, in the last two months of this year. They are required to be fully vaccinated and take Realtime-PCR tests within 48 hours.