The Thai government should look at imposing preventive measures to test or restrict travelers from China and countries where a lot of Chinese tourists have visited, the main opposition Pheu Thai Party said.
"Given the [Covid-19 outbreak] situation in China, Thailand should cautiously prepare for the influx of Chinese tourists," said former deputy prime minister Chaturon Chaisang who is a member of Pheu Thai's strategy committee.
"We should have some guards up…and tests should be administered to find out what kind of variants are coming in from China to find out if they are more severe than the variants that have been found in Thailand," he said.
His comment came after Beijing announced yesterday that inbound travelers will no longer be subject to quarantine from January 8 onward.
The country also announced today that it would allow its citizens to travel abroad and measures are being put in place to facilitate travel for Chinese outside their country.
The move was a good sign for the Thai tourism sector as Chinese tourists accounted for nearly a quarter of the 40 million visitors to Thailand in 2019, before the Covid-19 outbreak.
China had until recently imposed heavy restrictions under the "Zero-Covid" banner until rare protests erupted in the country in November this year, prompting Beijing to change its policy.
Outbreak In China
The latest Covid outbreak in China saw more than 20% of its 1.4 billion population infected with the virus. The World Health Organization warned that such an outbreak could possibly lead to new strains.
Meanwhile, Thailand's weekly Covid hospitalization cases were less than 3,000 between December 18 and 24.
China's move to lift quarantine for inbound travelers led to optimistic comments from the private sector.
The Chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, Sanan Angubolkul, said yesterday that he expects at least 5 million Chinese tourists next year compared to less than 300,000 in 2022.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand also changed its forecast for the tourist number in 2023 from 20 million to 25 million after Beijing's announcement.
However, many people have remained cautious because of the ongoing outbreak in China.
Countries such as Japan, India and the United States are thinking of imposing restrictions such as having a negative Covid-19 test before Chinese tourists could enter their country.
Pheu Thai's Chaturon pointed out that Japan already announced that arrivals from China will require a negative test result before entering the country. If tested positive at the airport, they will be isolated.
The US is contemplating similar steps to Japan and Malaysia already imposed new tracking and surveillance measures.
India has last week begun to administer random tests on 2% of passenger arrivals from other countries due to concerns over new variants.
Chaturon said the Thai government should cautiously impose similar measures and closely monitored the outbreak situation in China in order to inform the Thai public about the ongoing situation to avoid public panic.
He said imposing such measures would allow travelers from other countries to feel safer from Covid when traveling in Thailand.
He also recommended that the Thai government, especially the health ministry, should offer help to Chinese people as there are reports that there are shortages of medical equipment and medicines in some states on the mainland at the
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