News Forum - Countdown to February 1 – opening Thailand’s tourist floodgates?

[Poolie]

3 minutes ago, JamesR said:

I took my kids to southern Spain once at Christmas years ago as everywhere else was full, it was a last minute booking.

Never again, full of tattooed,  fat, chavy, dim, beer swilling Brits, the type I would never go near in the UK.

A week felt like a month.

It would!

[Dmitrii]

23 hours ago, SkylineGTR82 said:

I think Thailand will very quickly change the Test&Go rule under some pretense as soon as they realize that there are not enough tourists registering for the Thailand Pass. Probably then the 2nd PCR test will be canceled and they will come up with something else. wait...

In the end all will come to universal "Fully vaccinated + rapid test on arrival" requirement. Anything atop of this is redundant and scares off tourists.

The absolutely another question though is whether Thai government really wants tourists back...

It may be that they just pretend to sooth those Thai people who rely on touristic industry but in fact do not really care if tourists return in mass or not.

[Ksmui]

3 minutes ago, Dmitrii said:

In the end all will come to universal "Fully vaccinated + rapid test on arrival" requirement. Anything atop of this is redundant and scares off tourists.

The absolutely another question though is whether Thai government really wants tourists back...

It may be that they just pretend to sooth those Thai people who rely on touristic industry but in fact do not really care if tourists return in mass or not.

It certainly feels that way - only want very wealthy to come - boat program/golf program/elite visa etc. don’t want just run of the mill “dirty Falang”. I was spending 10k US per year in Thailand prior to Covid - 

[JamesR]

It is so simple.

Most people around the world today do not want to go anywhere outside of their country.

They have families, they want to take care of the family.

Thailand is trying to do this and that, it will not work until people feel things are back to normal in the world.

That will take quite a while yet.

A holiday is a luxury, a treat, most people are willing to wait in order to protect what is important to them and a holiday is now low on the list of things they want to do.

All countries are in the same situation so just accept it.

[Ksmui]

1 hour ago, JamesR said:

It is so simple.

Most people around the world today do not want to go anywhere outside of their country.

They have families, they want to take care of the family.

Thailand is trying to do this and that, it will not work until people feel things are back to normal in the world.

That will take quite a while yet.

A holiday is a luxury, a treat, most people are willing to wait in order to protect what is important to them and a holiday is now low on the list of things they want to do.

All countries are in the same situation so just accept it.

A lot of people do want to travel. The point is that the policies do not reflect the reality of the current situation.  Today Thailand had just under 8000 new cases. 216 of those were reported to be “imported”. That number should certainly be taken with a grain of salt since many of them most likely contracted Covid after arriving in Thailand. 
 

Pre-departure Tests along with arrival tests Will catch most cases since the current incubation period is three days. 
 

Thailands policies are behind most of the world and soon the other Southeast Asian countries  

Reality is that Thailand will lose out on a lot of tourist dollars if they continue with the current policy. The real discussion and focus should be on making sure that everyone in Thailand that can be is vaccinated. 
 

 

[Jmnasoc]

There doesn’t seem to be any websites that reserve test and go hotels in Phuket (unlike Bangkok)  and it’s too much work to contact hotels directly to get the test and go rate. Plus it’s impossible to reserve some nights as test and go and then others at regular rate. This system doesn’t work. 

[LoongFred]

11 hours ago, Dmitrii said:

In the end all will come to universal "Fully vaccinated + rapid test on arrival" requirement. Anything atop of this is redundant and scares off tourists.

The absolutely another question though is whether Thai government really wants tourists back...

It may be that they just pretend to sooth those Thai people who rely on touristic industry but in fact do not really care if tourists return in mass or not.

TAT has said the focus is on high end tourists. Those that are low end and/or begpackers are not viewed as desirable. So those low budget people who only want a 30-40 $/night room at the beach and want to spend their holiday drinking beer and chasing girls might be put off. Generally higher end tourist use tour agents who take care of details.

[mcambl61]

On 1/29/2022 at 1:31 PM, Jason said:

When the Omicron surge comes, test and Go will be the first program to be suspended....again

It is already has been here... And proved to be nothing more than a flu virus. 

 

Time to open up everything everywhere and stop the ridiculous overreaction and fear mongering nonsense.