File photo: Travel Daily
Thai business media reported that the tourist "high season" was in tatters in Thailand because of the Omicron variant.
Foreign tourists - with no appetite for going through a seven day quarantine since Test and Go was suspended - have been cancelling in droves.
They are cancelling trips to Phuket.
Flights into the holiday island are being scrapped with TUI Nordic stopping them on Christmas Day.
In Chiang Mai tours are being cancelled and hotel bookings are going unfilled.
Bangkok governor Aswin Kwanmuang pulled the plug on New Year events by the BMA.
The media put this down to Omicron and noted that this comes despite general acceptance that the variant means less hospitalization but is considered faster spreading.
The impact on tourists potentially testing positive once in Thailand is enough to tell them "no thanks" and persuade them to stay in the US and Europe for now.
Trying to buck the trend are tourism leaders in Rayong, Pattaya and Hua Hin with requests to be considered "sandbox" destinations.
But these seem little more than forlorn hopes with the market for trips to Thailand thoroughly depressed.
Whether January will see any renewed hope remains highly debatable with Omicron sweeping Europe and the US with record numbers and Thailand itself bracing for worse days to come.
Central, The Mall Group and Icon Siam - three major retail groups - are pressing ahead with New Year plans with Covid protocols - but what visitors they have will mostly be domestic Thais not international visitors.
Meanwhile it was also reported that insurance companies face payouts of 20 billion baht on Covid policies - the new variant is overstretching them and means that many are facing losses after miscalculating the cost of policies.
All in all, "Happy New Year" as far as the Thai tourism industry goes looks a hollow saying this year.