androokery

4 hours ago, TERMINATOR3AB said:

Sorry  never  been to Phuket

If that  pic  of a street   and the  Kebab  sign is a  main street  in Phuket

I  am amazed  why  they have tourists  anyway

Looks like a  third  world  slum ...sorry  yuk    in  any  large city  there are  slums  sadly  true  ....   but a tourist  place to look like  a slum area  ?......Really  

One place I would  not want to visit if  in Thailand 

Good  Luck  Phuket

To each his own - I find pictures of the sterilized luxury tourist areas in Dubai totally off-putting.

10 minutes ago, Letseng said:

Is it difficult to have 15.000€ in the bank? Not that much. 

Ppl have 20.000€ for retirement ext.

It’s very difficult to retroactively make sure that whatever you have that is worth 15,000 Euro has been converted into money sitting in a bank account for the last six months. 

They want to open the country slowly. Taking in just a limited number of people. So they want to start with people who have a lot of disposable income. Such as someone who has 15,000 Euro just sitting in a bank account for six months. Later, when they want more tourists, the rules will change. 

Open up “fully”, you ask? I think they will allow some nationalities, even some western ones, to visit without quarantine before the end of 2021. They will however need to have insurance and do some type of testing as well. 
 

With those caveats, I remain positive and answer in the affirmative.

Yes. 

37 minutes ago, sydneyjed said:

Comparing apples and oranges!Just because one country can claim that its ground breaking 'Herd Mentality'was the answer really doesn't matter to the poor bas.ards locked down everywhere else or recovering from it!.That horrible wanky saying 'It is what it is' basically means more than half the worlds in deep sh.t either economically or socially and Stockholm is the last thing on their mind to be honest!

Comparing? I compared the volume of tourists in Stockholm to London and Phuket. That's actually equivalent to comparing apples to apples. Then you went off on a tangent. What I implied, but did not state outright, was more along the lines of "we fear what we don't know". We make a lot of assumptions about other places and since we don't know the details we fill that gap with fear. Sweden's strategy during this pandemic has been used as both a precautionary tale and something to aspire to, depending on when it was discussed and by whom. I just tried to shed some light on the situation on the ground. If your user name is an indication, you may geographically be almost as far removed from Stockholm as is possible on this planet. 

I'm guessing "wanky" is not an offensive term where you come from. 

1 hour ago, Bluedan said:

Sweden is doing just fine. How is that a failed strategy? Less deaths per million that Spain and UK who had massive hard lockdowns all based on Neil Ferguson's grossly incorrect predictions.

The balance does exist. You can't ignore the consequences of these policies. In the case of Europe cases are rising as testing has increased 10 fold. But miraculously deaths and ICU hospitalizations are minimal. But no worries keep your head in the sand.

 

Just to add to the story:

There are plenty of foreign tourists walking around Stockholm. Not London or Phuket volumes obviously, but enough to be noticeable. 

7 hours ago, Guderian said:

A good start to the article with a fair description of how things are in Thailand. Telling us that only 50 Elite visa holders have been able to return so far in total is useful and interesting, why can't be get more solid information like that? Kudos to the author.

 

But then it all (predictably) goes downhill as soon as the author starts the ritual wailing and gnashing of teeth about the grim situation in the tourism industry. There are three points to make in reply here, just in case the author or anyone else has missed them.

 

Firstly, the author essentially concludes by asking, or rather lamenting, why Thailand isn't doing something that no other country in the world has managed to do, i.e. reopen to tourism safely without quarantine. Why do you need to ask such a vacuous question? Thailand is far from being the only country that has a significant tourist industry but remains closed to most visitors for the safety of its general population. Don't you think that advanced economies like Japan and New Zealand would have figured out how to do this if it was so easy?

 

Secondly, look at what is happening in parts of Europe and the US where tourism was allowed this summer. Almost entire countries, like Wales, are now effectively in lockdown, though it's termed 'local' in the UK, with all the negative consequences for the non-tourism part of the economy. Something like 85%-90% of Thailand's economy dies not depend on foreign tourists, and the largest part of it is ticking over quite nicely at the moment. Why on earth would you risk having to shut down large swathes of that just so the 10%-15% that does depend on foreign tourists can make a few dollars again? Imperil high-tech factories for the sake of some manky, mass-market hotels, bars and tourist attractions in Pattaya and Phuket, that doesn't make much financial sense.

 

And thirdly, forget fancy models like the Imperial College one, we now have actual data as to what happens when countries reopen to tourism, even with certain limited controls applied at national level, and it isn't a pretty sight. Remember that this disaster is still ongoing and likely to get worse before it starts getting better.

 

 

And also remember that Thailand has an ageing population, not quite as bad as Japan's but heading in that direction, so if the virus does get a serious foothold here, it's consequences in terms of deaths are likely to be far worse than they have been in countries with a younger demographic.

 

 

You’ve made a fundamental mistake in your argument. 20% of GDP does not equate to 20% of the population. It would if everyone had the same income and had an equal share in everything. You probably know that’s not the case in Thailand. I would argue that tourism is exactly the type of business that impacts a lot of people, where a lot of people can reap a tiny bit of advantage each. 

2 hours ago, TonyR101 said:

Thailand does need its tourists back in the country, not only from select regions but from all over the world. I might be a dreamer but my suggestion would be -

 

1, Re-start scheduled international air flights into Suvarnabhumi Airport on a limited basis enabling Thai Immigration to handle the flow without undue airport crowding.

2. COVID test all arriving passengers and extend the arrival card to include more details of each passenger's programme in Thailand, prior to passport control.

3. Provide a lockable security tracking bracelet for each arriving passenger, collecting data similar to what we currently have on our Smart Phones, for a period of 14 to 20 days after arrival.

4. Advise passengers of hefty penalties for any avoidance of current health protection rules, and increase the strength of tourist police to make random passport checks, and assist tourists in keeping to the rules.  

 

The costs of tourist testing and hire of tracking bracelets, would be charged as a fee/deposit on arrival.

As to point 3 above, I see many similar suggestions of technical and digital solutions to the current problems of opening up Thailand to tourism in a safe way. Very few of the suggestions allow for the time required to source hardware, define the technical infrastructure, source or develop software and set up the environments needed to support the whole thing in a safe and efficient manner. It could easily take months. 

1 hour ago, Jiggo said:

Feasible, one passenger Covid poss, all other passengers on flight into quarantine, following the Cambodia model.

That doesn’t really follow the science on how infections spread in the air plane cabins. It’s more like a radius of one seat from the infected person. 

2 hours ago, charmonman said:

I have sent multiple emails to the ThaiLongStay Company as directed by the official instructions to register for this STV program. No response. I think the whole thing is a scam. Only pre-selected groups are being let in under this program, everyone else is just wasting their time.

 

Can anyone in this forum report a positive response from them?

I have received responses from them, twice. I was informed that the first step, before they want their 10,700 baht, is to send a photo of my passport along with city and country of residence and place of my nearest Thai embassy or consulate. 

Make everything west of Sukhumvit pedestrian and bike areas only. Walking Street everywhere ???? 

5 hours ago, Blumpie said:

Have fun getting your testing before coming, plane tickets that may get cancelled, arrival, quarantine in a very expensive hotel with cheap thai food costing 8X the price.  Listening to booming music outside your door because it's "amazing thailand" for 14 days.  Going to closed deserted tourist attractions, hard to find food, the usual rip=offs, finding a way back to the airport in hopes that your flight hasn't been cancelled.  Get another COVID test maybe because of your own countries restrictions, and see if your plane will actually fly.  Then enjoy another 14 day quarantine when you get home.  Cost at least 10k USD.

 

NO THANK YOU!  

Sounds exciting! I like a challenge:)

41 minutes ago, jayhon73 said:

@farang51OK great, thanks. That link for STV doesn't mention the 500,000 which is confusing. So I thought this was something more direct & simple.

I thought the 500,000 requirement was for a business visa, a bad way to weed out people who only pretend to be important players at their real or imaginary companies. 

This is a very interesting article written by well-respected scientists:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2818-3
 

These guys show that the major genetic risk factor for severe COVID-19 is inherited from Neanderthals.  Check the map in the article. Thailand has very few people with this gene. 

51 minutes ago, Promula said:

You're showing an important problem there - you've referred to "Phuket" and "rip-off city" but you're probably talking about Patong. Most tourists head straight to Patong or another beach conurbation, and never look at the east side of the island where the locals live, and that includes the "city" of "Phuket".

 

Phuket city has a bus service from the airport, which although not cheap, at 100 baht it's entirely reasonable. It also has hundreds of places to eat at and dozens to drink at which are Thai priced.  

Phuket does become a much more agreeable place once you’ve discovered Phuket Town. And the cheap blue buses to and from the beaches.

The problem with closing down has always been how to open up. How do you start small and scale up? I think they should start with packaged flights. Mainly direct to Phuket. Maybe flying in to Phuket and from there to Koh Samui as well. Incoming passengers get a stamp in their passports saying they are restricted to their chosen province. Something that will block them from leaving on a domestic flight. But I’m not saying they should be controlled to the extent of making sure they don’t leave by boat. 
 

There are several reasons why package tourists are a good idea. They’re usually couples or families. They have decent spending power. They often spend a lot of the time at the chosen hotel and the surrounding area. The companies can make sure that most guests stay at only a few hotels, making sure those hotels get good enough occupancy levels to make it worth opening. Package tourists have company representatives. They usually have good insurance. They come in on chartered flights flying directly. 

1 hour ago, richard_smith237 said:

Thats incredible... 

 

From what I can understand of the paper, it outlines how the 'risk genes’ may have evolved out of East Asians through selection.

 

Whats also striking is how this ‘risk gene’ (the genetic variants associated with sever Covid-19) are more prevalent in those originating from the Indian Subcontinent yet absent in those from Africa and Amazonia (brazil Covid-19 stats high because of recent the European influence) 

 

The risk gene is also prevalent in those of the Papua region - it will be interesting to see how this theory plays out there (if accurate data collection is possible).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or rather that East Asian people don’t carry the Neanderthal gene because their ancestors didn’t include Neanderthals.