Thailand unlikely to welcome tourists until at least 2021, putting millions of jobs at risk
Winter sun holidays to Thailand are looking increasingly unlikely to happen this year, with the deputy governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), Chattan Kunjara Na Ayudhya, predicting that the country’s borders will not reopen to leisure travellers until 2021.
"The Christmas period, usually the high season, is in jeopardy and I’m looking horribly even to Chinese New Year in February," he said. "It is not a rosy picture."
Thailand has been praised by the World Health Organisation for its handling of the virus. To date, the country has had a total of 3,351 cases, 58 deaths, and not a single local case has been recorded for the past 78 days.
When it comes to the economic danger, however, the outlook for the Land of Smiles is far bleaker. About 20 per cent of the country’s GDP comes from the tourism industry, which is now in free fall, with up to a third of tourism-related businesses at risk of closing permanently. Pre-Covid, over four million people were employed in the tourism sector but without a return to business in the very near future many of them will lose their livelihoods.
Government relief funds for those working in the travel industry have done little to ease the pain, especially as many working in hospitality do so on an informal basis, making them ineligible for the 5,000 baht (£122) monthly payment – hotel drivers, fitness instructors and tour guides are among these affected.
Then there’s the spin-off businesses, such as beachside food stalls, fishermen supplying hotels with their catch of the day, dive schools, massage studios and elephant sanctuaries, which are now struggling to find enough funds to feed and care for their animals.
While big brand hotels might be able to ride out the storm for another six months, the impact on small businesses and local communities will be nothing short of devastating. Director of Bamboo Travel Tom Milner said: "The TAT seem to be suggesting that it is acceptable to leave these businesses without income for close to a year. If this is the case it is very likely that a whole host of DMCs (tour operators), hotels and restaurants will fold, and many guides will be looking for other sources of employment, by the time travel starts again. Thailand’s tourism industry may never recover if this is to be the case."
David Keen, CEO of Thailand-based branding agency QUO, reiterated: "From Bangkok to Phuket, hotels remain shut or more or less empty, and the likelihood is they will stay that way through the end of the year. I cannot see the Thai government softening its stance too much and the entire tourism community needs to buckle down for sustained losses."
Talk of travel bubbles between other countries deemed to be low-risk have also ground to a halt, as cases re-erupted in potential markets such as Hong Kong, Vietnam and Japan. But the idea hasn’t been scrapped completely, with Thai tourism operators proposing a new Safe and Sealed plan, which would allow a small number of visitors from cities with no recorded cases for 30 days to enter the country and stay at designated hotels, most likely on islands such as Phuket or Koh Samui where the population could be more easily monitored.
Part of this proposal includes a minimum stay of 30 days and a minimum spend of 100,000 baht (£2,455).
But perhaps the question we should be asking is not when can I go on holiday to Thailand but when would the Thai people like us to visit? And how can we support them until then? The Thai public, those not employed in tourism, at least, have apparently voiced strong support for the government’s stringent measures. In a poll published in the Bangkok Post last month, 94.51 per cent of the respondents believed foreigners should be barred from entering the country to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
"Thai people realise that should the country open too quickly... it would set the tourism industry back much further, likely well into next year," says David Johnson of Bangkok-based travel PR firm Delivering Asia. "So whereas financial priorities are high, a lot of Thais in mid- and low-income employment are putting health first, returning to their families, finding other ways of eeking out a living and sitting this out."
Thailand is exempt from the FCO advice against all non-essential travel. However, the Thai border remains closed to all but a handful of diplomats and business people, and the requirement to self-isolate for 14 days on your return to the UK remains in place.
