madmitch

Whilst Muay Thai may be a welcome addition to the Olympics, I rather think that Prawit may not be as influential within the IOC as the OP seems to think. Not exactly an advert for Thai sport, is he?

What a pointless article! If a band cancels a gig, the punter gets his/ her ticket money refunded. Bands and promoters take out insurance against such cancellations, and the cost of this in the current climate is one reason for the high ticket prices. I remember when Bangkok was a cheaper place to watch gigs. Not any more it seems.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/woke Words change their meanings. If you haven't heard the adjective woke you must be living in a 20th century bubble!

Meantime British Airways announce they won't be reinstating their LHR-BKK flights until next year at the earliest. How many other airlines have taken a similar stance or are flying fewer planes into Thailand?

Trolley dolly? Air hostess? Use terms like this in an article in the UK and the translator would be "cancelled"! Good to see that "wokeness" hasn't hit Thailand!

Try any of the outlet places, e.g. 71 Outlet or the shops at the Premium Outlet Mall.

Has someone at TAT bought a Buzzwords Dictionary? Or is an "Amazing" feature of the famous TAT calculator?

You don't need to be an underwriter to realise that 30-odd baht is not going to give a lot of coverage. It's still unclear what's being covered but those of you thinking it'll replace the need for travel insurance might need to think again.

I thought the original reason for the so-called insurance coverage was more to protect the hospitals against foreigners who enter hospital for whatever reason and are then unable to pay the bill. It now ssounds as though this insurance will now be some sort of personal accident insurance, possibly similar to the coverage provided by many credit card companies. It doesn't sound like it'll provide any cover for sickness, yet I wonder how many people will not buy proper travel insurance as a result of misguided information regarding this product? No point commenting further until the final details are ironed out but at 60 baht a pop, the coverage will be extremely limited! And if and when whoever is underwriting this starts to see the statistics showing a loss, will the traveller see a rise in the cost of this?

The headline bears no correlation to the narrative whatsoever.

Small hotels didn't. It was almost impossible for guesthouses and small opertors to get SHA+ approval. And with large hotels selling rooms at a fraction of their normal rates they simply didn't get any customers.

How can they do that when the vast majority of cases aren't reported?

If only the post offices opened on a Sunday!

Yes. One exceptionally rich family missing from that list.

He disclosed that, during the peak of the pandemic, a number of insurance companies rushed to pay compensation to their clients, in order to ease their financial burdens, and examination of the documents filed for compensation was, therefore, more cursory than usual. I read this initially as to ease the insurance companies' financial burdens but now realise it mean the Insured Persons. This is odd, considering the type of insurance, which didn't pay out based on expenses incurred but a fixed amount to anyone who had proof of developing covid-19. And, having worked in insurance most of my life, I don't know any insurers who have ever rushed to pay claims without doing a proper assessment.....up until now!!

Typically Thai insular view, not looking at what's going on in the rest of the world.

I'd like to know what this has to do with the Minister of Health! He has of course recently visited Europe, probably looked at the prices there and decided that all Europeans are filthy rich! Very doubtful he'd have spent one baht of his own billions, though!

I think Rooster must have been stoned when writing those first rew paragraphs!

There are a lot more than that but most of them brew outside of Thailand to get around the laws here, then of course the extortionate import tax is paid. 3 Bears is a good example. Their beer was brewed to the Thai owner's recipe in Taiwan and imported into Thailand. It was just too expensive and the pub didn't survive very long.

Just reading this thread shows the dreadful lack of choice of Thai beers. Let's hope Move Forward get their microbrewery bill passed.

Stick to news, Rooster. Leave the nightlife to Stickman!

They could quite easily drop the emergency decree if they wanted to. With a good enough reason, i.e. a worsening of the covid situation, they could simply reinstate it. But they don't want to and we know the reason why!

When someone told me flights from the UK to Thailand during summer were £2,000 return, I had to double check. And, sure enough, that was the Thai Airways price! Nothing below about £1200 return, about twice the level you've have found pre-covid. If these are the prices we're going to see from Europe then western tourist numbers will not be recoving like they seem to think they will.

I was very surprised to be able to use contactless when I was last in Thailand, admittedly only at Big C and Tesco Lotus. Here in the UK buskers in the street have contactless payment machines, as do individuals that might accept tips such as tour guides. Thailand is way, way behind but the comment above regarding gogo girls might not be out of the question in the future! I think the OP relates to the use of Shopee, Lazada and the various sellers on Facebook to which quite a few Thais are addicted!

I thought I read a short time ago that the Thai monopolies commission has rejected this. Maybe they work purely on an advisory basis, to be overturned by the Government to select whatever suits the big families.