Post COVID-19 tourism in Thailand: Bargain travel deals and high quality tourists

[mikebell]

21 hours ago, webfact said:

Brits can fly to Thailand for just £387 return in February 2021.

Try getting a flight from BKK to LHR - mine cost over £700 using Skyscanner.

[ChipButty]

45 minutes ago, mikebell said:

Try getting a flight from BKK to LHR - mine cost over £700 using Skyscanner.

One way?

[lkv]

9 hours ago, mikebell said:

Try getting a flight from BKK to LHR - mine cost over £700 using Skyscanner.

Use Kayak. This is in 10 days from now. One way.

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by lkv

[mikebell]

17 hours ago, lkv said:

Use Kayak. This is in 10 days from now. One way.

 

Wow.  Thank you.  UK has 30,000 deaths; Lieland 50.  I think I'll stay put until the figures draw closer together.

[ChipButty]

September seems the cheapest month to fly, Phuket - Manchester return 549 Pounds on ETIHAD

 

Thai £3,517 

Edited May 6, 2020 by ChipButty

[Chua]

If the Thai government wants tourists to say longer, how about offering 90-day Visa on Arrivals for free, and even extensions beyond that?   Never understood the rationale for only 30 day visas on arrival; what are they afraid of -- tourists who might otherwise spend TWICE or THREE times as time here, therefore, 200% to 300% more on accommodations, dining and tourism!  Seems like a very simple way to easy double or triple the revenue from tourism.  While they are at it, how about getting rid of very time-consuming and needless accommodation registration requirements?  Big brother mentality does not make foreigners feel comfortable; quite the opposite -- like they are being tracked and watched.

 

And for increasing domestic tourism, it would be so easy to get rid of the 90-day reporting requirement (since they've just proven this is possible from early April till 31 July.  This way, legitimate 1-year visa holders can feel more at ease to travel within Thailand as freely as any Thai national can.

[dallen52]

I reckon they get one decent crack at this.

Either they make the conditions acceptable for tourists and long stays to return,  or they will lose them, maybe for a long time. 

Many farang have left, and some like myself are still waiting for the relaxing of restrictions so we can get black.

I'm stuck in Australia. 

 

If travel between low risk countries first is allowed and then progressed to the rest as conditions change. 

 

If covid19 insurance coverage is mandated then why not the government issue the same for a fee.?

It's virtually impossible to purchase. 

Isolation on arrival is possibly a condition too.

 

Consider this. 

If farang don't return, or stop support for the Thai people and families, there's going to be bigger problems than the missing 5000 baht payments that no-one is receiving. 

[dallen52]

On 5/4/2020 at 7:53 PM, itsallmine68 said:

So , does this men the $100,000 prerequisite for Covid insurance is done with??? and a test for covid 72 hours prior to flying approved by the Thai Embassy?????

I hope sense prevails and it's dropped for safe countries.

It's the biggest detterent. 

 

The insurance coverage was not available. 

Now it's excluded from many policies. 

 

Allow the government to insure travelers and charge a fee in the ticket price. 

Been kicked around for years. Do it..

I will be back to Thailand as soon as I can get a flight. 

Been stranded in Australia since March 25th. 

[lkv]

14 minutes ago, dallen52 said:

If farang don't return

You may have not noticed, to be fair it's quite recent, only since 2015 (????), but there was a sustained effort to reduce the number of long term Westerners in Thailand, to increase xenophobia amongst the Thai population towards them, and promote short term Asian tourism, particularly coming from China, with no focus on Western markets.

[Blumpie]

Sounds too good to be true!  I'm in!

Excuse me, I'm a little drunk...  

[GinBoy2]

So one word of caution here.

 

Check the refund conditions if you are booking so far in advance.

 

I work for Delta, and seriously I have seen flights cancelled in the past couple of months, within a couple of hours of them due to depart.

 

There are a myriad of T&C's for the airlines, so this might well be a time that reading the small print is something you must do!

Edited May 6, 2020 by GinBoy2

[new2here]

16 hours ago, dallen52 said:

I reckon they get one decent crack at this.

Either they make the conditions acceptable for tourists and long stays to return,  or they will lose them, maybe for a long time. 

Many farang have left, and some like myself are still waiting for the relaxing of restrictions so we can get black.

I'm stuck in Australia. 

 

If travel between low risk countries first is allowed and then progressed to the rest as conditions change. 

 

If covid19 insurance coverage is mandated then why not the government issue the same for a fee.?

It's virtually impossible to purchase. 

Isolation on arrival is possibly a condition too.

 

Consider this. 

If farang don't return, or stop support for the Thai people and families, there's going to be bigger problems than the missing 5000 baht payments that no-one is receiving. 

I agree.  The easiest way to address the potential health care costs incurred by non-nationals is via some form of a pay-upon-arrival health care fee - or building it into ticket prices (this however would really only easily apply to air tickets and less so for land border crossings).  

You could price it at some nominal level and impose it each time a foreigner enters (aka single-entry).... or... you could have a slightly higher fee, but make that fee cover a longer period of time - say 60 or 90 consecutive days covering multiple entries - for those who will use Thailand as a base to explore neighboring countries.

 

to me the key to allowing any form of mass tourism restarting is having access readily available “instant results” COVID testing (kind of like what EK has in place for outbound DXB passengers)

[kingdong]

22 hours ago, GinBoy2 said:

So one word of caution here.

 

Check the refund conditions if you are booking so far in advance.

 

I work for Delta, and seriously I have seen flights cancelled in the past couple of months, within a couple of hours of them due to depart.

 

There are a myriad of T&C's for the airlines, so this might well be a time that reading the small print is something you must do!

And pay with a credit card.

[dallen52]

On 5/7/2020 at 3:07 PM, new2here said:

I agree.  The easiest way to address the potential health care costs incurred by non-nationals is via some form of a pay-upon-arrival health care fee - or building it into ticket prices (this however would really only easily apply to air tickets and less so for land border crossings).  

You could price it at some nominal level and impose it each time a foreigner enters (aka single-entry).... or... you could have a slightly higher fee, but make that fee cover a longer period of time - say 60 or 90 consecutive days covering multiple entries - for those who will use Thailand as a base to explore neighboring countries.

 

to me the key to allowing any form of mass tourism restarting is having access readily available “instant results” COVID testing (kind of like what EK has in place for outbound DXB passengers)

Totally agree. 

I mentioned elsewhere that if tourists and others were at 20 million people and the government imposed say a 100 baht minimum insurance levy, it's 2 billion baht annually, with possible minimum impact on the public hospitals.