News Forum - First flight to Phuket under eased restrictions arrives

[Thaiger]

Phuket’s first arrival flight under Thailand Pass’s new eased restrictions has arrived! A flight from Qatar carrying with 324 passengers landed Phuket International Airport this morning, and an airport director said 4,482 travellers in total are expected to arrive today. The director said that throughout May, an average of 27 flights per day were expected to arrive at Phuket as confirmed by 21 airlines. Today’s arrivals reportedly took about 17 minutes to go through the required process. They were welcomed by a team of staff lead by the director, and officials from the immigration, customs, and international disease control offices. […]

The story First flight to Phuket under eased restrictions arrives as seen on Thaiger News.

Read the full story

[Ramanathan.P]

Keep the ball rolling....let us see how things unfold in the coming weeks....

[JJJ]

56 minutes ago, Ramanathan.P said:

Keep the ball rolling....let us see how things unfold in the coming weeks....

Just a start—but need to eliminate other pointless rules like outdoor masks and other business closures for a full recovery. 
 

Many places in Europe and North America are seeing tourist number above 2019 while Thailand is still down 75%. 

[Artemis080]

6 minutes ago, JJJ said:

Just a start—but need to eliminate other pointless rules like outdoor masks and other business closures for a full recovery. 
 

Many places in Europe and North America are seeing tourist number above 2019 while Thailand is still down 75%. 

And it will stay there too. China can't travel for the forseeable future. Without them, the tourism numbers will be significantly impacted. Not that it would actually be a bad thing. One could argue that it had become out of hand.

I'm not sure masks will drop any time soon. It's very much a cultural expectation.

[rc1]

23 minutes ago, Artemis080 said:

And it will stay there too. China can't travel for the forseeable future. Without them, the tourism numbers will be significantly impacted. Not that it would actually be a bad thing. One could argue that it had become out of hand.

I'm not sure masks will drop any time soon. It's very much a cultural expectation.

A cultural expectation?

That gets said from time to time but doesn't make sense. Never was before Covid. The land of smiles....can't see them behind a mask. 

As soon as the government comes out and declares "endemic" ( the fear can end), Thais will drop masks just like most other countries in the world are doing. 

 

 

[vvdb.fr]

a few more months to wait for a not nice variant to emerge and we have to start all over again.

all countries in the world should be a little more careful to avoid another epidemic.

aligning with the lowest bidder is a new madness inherited from the world before.

[L-Dogg]

3 hours ago, JJJ said:

Just a start—but need to eliminate other pointless rules like outdoor masks and other business closures for a full recovery. 
 

Many places in Europe and North America are seeing tourist number above 2019 while Thailand is still down 75%. 

Exactly, I live in Las Vegas,NV, and I can tell you for sure, tourism is back to pre- covid levels and then some!!!

[Soidog]

26 minutes ago, L-Dogg said:

Exactly, I live in Las Vegas,NV, and I can tell you for sure, tourism is back to pre- covid levels and then some!!!

I think that’s the point that the Thai authorities have failed to grasp. There is clearly a significant pent up demand that’s going begging. By delaying full opening by at least 3 months longer than necessary, they have missed the boat. Numbers will of course increase significantly in the coming weeks and they will claim success and again miss the point. 

[Saunk]

With the easing restrictions starting today I think they'll be an initial increase in tourist numbers which will then fall off after a month.  Especially considering it's low season, much nicer climates to go to during the summer than Thailand.  

[Manu]

14 hours ago, rc1 said:

A cultural expectation?

That gets said from time to time but doesn't make sense. Never was before Covid. The land of smiles....can't see them behind a mask. 

As soon as the government comes out and declares "endemic" ( the fear can end), Thais will drop masks just like most other countries in the world are doing. 

Well it does not make sense cause it is completely untrue, I am really not sure why some are saying that now. Like you said, nobody was wearing masks prior to Covid in Thailand nor in any of the neighbouring countries as it happens. Maybe they are mixing up with Japan (there it is a cultural expectation, not in Thailand) or China (mostly because of extreme pollution).

I agree with your second sentence too. As the general fear is fading, the mask will disapear (regardless wether it is mandatory or not), in fact it is disapearing slowly right now already where I am. Well for a start, like in Europe, Omicron has been around all over Thailand since December, we can all clearly see that we all got it at some point or another (where I am it is literally easier to count people who have not had it the past 3 months). People are starting to see clearly that the mask (outdoors at least) was actually useless and now certainly completely obsolete. I am convinced that the current "land of masks" will become soon again the land of smiles.

[Manu]

11 hours ago, Soidog said:

I think that’s the point that the Thai authorities have failed to grasp. There is clearly a significant pent up demand that’s going begging. By delaying full opening by at least 3 months longer than necessary, they have missed the boat. Numbers will of course increase significantly in the coming weeks and they will claim success and again miss the point. 

They have missed the boat for this high season, they had already done so by December. Now it is the low season, there has never been high mass tourists coming to Thailand during the low season so no reason why it should be so this year. If they scrap the Thai Pass next month as they seem to be talking about (I strongly believe that they will), then there will be 0 restriction left. From June till October/November, it will leave plenty of time for people to know about that and book their holidays for the next high season, time when the vast majority of tourists are coming to Thailand. I am confident that it will happen so, surely enough tourists to give a huge relief to everyone working in the tourist industry. By the end of December we will have a better picture. Certainly not the next few months.

[rc1]

39 minutes ago, Manu said:

I am convinced that the current "land of masks" will become soon again the land of smiles.

What a great line!

Couldn't agree more and don't think there's really anyone who could genuinely disagree with this.

There's this kind of revisionist history occuring where apparently Thais always wore masks as  a kind of cultural expectation - ah no, it was the LAND OF SMILES....