This was a recent piece of news about Langkawi as a test case for travel bubble. Article in theedgemarkets.com There was an announcement that the government was studying the views and feedback from stakeholders on plans to make Langkawi Island a pilot project for a tourism bubble destination. Do read the full article here: Article in theedgemarkets.com
Langkawi island will not be the first. The mentioned benchmark is Phuket’s sandbox programme. Read about it here. Personally, I think this is a good idea and we should do it. Even if we do not open up to foreign travelers, it can be local travelers too.
What we need to also be communicating across to everyone is that even IF all the tourists / travelers are vaccinated, it does NOT mean there would be zero covid-19 cases in the island.
The reason is a simple one, Phuket has already shown that Covid-19 cases would still be happening. What’s more important is that we take pro-active steps to manage this. If we expect cases to be zero, then I think we can stop planning for this already.
The reason why I say so is because with the wrong expectations, then the outcome will be different too. For example, it may be considered successful as it helped the tourism sector gain a lifeline in Langkawi but everyone may be focused on new covid-19 cases and thus they may think this programme is a failure. These are the Covid-19 cases in Phuket this week. (source here) With current Delta variant, it will most likely happen.
- Aug 12 – 33 new cases
- Aug 13 – 82 new cases
- Aug 14 – 109 new cases
- Aug 15 – 49 new cases
- Aug 16 – 50 new cases
- Aug 17 – 43 new cases
- Aug 18 – 89 new cases
Yes, I did visit Langkawi at least once per year on average
People say there’s not much to do in Langkawi. Actually that’s the reason why we are there right? Wake up when we want to wake up, walk down for breakfast, laze around a bit, drink coffee in some new cafe, eat some seafood for dinner, stroll by the beach, buy some chocolates for loved ones and well just drive around the island maybe drop by some new and nice hotels to take some photos?
These are enough for a few days and doing this once every year does not seem to be that bad yeah. Of course, there’s also the feeding eagles, island hopping, take the cable car, swim in the Dayang Bunting lake and more. Come on… is it so different from visiting another island? Happy visiting yeah, if it comes to fruition since this will have to depend on the new government.
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