Russians and Indian high spenders in the plans as Thai tourism minister HALVES 2021 assessment - Thai Visa

Russians and Indian high spenders in the plans as Thai tourism minister HALVES 2021 assessment

 

Picture: Thai Rath

 

Thailand's minister for tourism and sports Pipat Ratchakitprakan said that he expects no less than five million foreign tourists to visit the country this year.

 

This is half previous assessments from the TAT in recent weeks. Their chief Yutthasak Suphasorn suggested 10 million would come. 

 

Billionaire Pipat was upbeat talking to Thai Rath about who these tourists might be, promoting the new idea of "Area Quarantine" while a ministerial aide said that 5 million doses of vaccine are being sought to inspire confidence in main tourism hotspots like Pattaya and Phuket.

 

It is felt that vaccination of locals is better than waiting for WHO's vaccination passport ideas to materialize.

 

Pipat said that no fewer than 5 million tourists would come in 2021. For now he was busy working on improving the Certificate of Entry website.

 

He was keen to hype up his "Area Quarantine" (AQ) plans saying it was much better than the "Villa Quarantine" that has already started in Phuket.

 

Under AQ tourists would still quarantine for 14 days but they would only be under lockdown in their rooms for three days. Then they would be free to use the grounds of participtaing hotels for the remaining 11. 

 

He claimed that as soon as AQ gets the nod from the CCSA Covid-19 authorities the tourists would flood in as this is just what they have been waiting for.

 

Thaivisa notes that this may be wide of the mark. Many online are saying that what tourists are waiting for is an end to quarantine entirely in Thailand.

 

So who are these tourists waiting to come to Thailand? No mention was made of British people - hyped up last week by the TAT in a much ridiculed 6 million person assessment of visitors. 

 

No, said Pipat, it was the Russians who would be leading the way. Tour companies had already been following the news and are planning 2 charter flights a day carrying 300-400 people on each flight to Phuket for AQ.

 

Apart from this Pipat said that high spending Indians who wanted to get married in Thailand would be the other group. 

 

He claimed that resorts with a total of 6,500 rooms across five provinces - Phuket, Chonburi (Pattaya in reality), Surat Thani (Koh Samui), Chiang Mai and Krabi were interested in providing AQ.

 

Ministerial aide Phinthorn Srisanphang said that 50,000 doses of the initial lot of vaccine received on February 24th would be mainly used to vaccinate hotel workers to facillitate AQ first. 

 

He revealed that the ministry has applied for 5 million doses of vaccine for the five tourism provinces to be delivered in the third quarter of this year.

 

That would inspire confidence in foreign tourists to visit and get tourism off the ground in the fourth and final quarter of 2021.

 

Waiting for the WHO vaccine passport plan could see the recovery delayed until the second quarter of next year, he noted. 

 

He did however intimate that the aim was to stop quarantine altogether as soon as was possible. 

 

Source: Thai Rath