Allowing tourists back: Covid panel chief expresses concern but admits the economy needs them

[Matzzon]

37 minutes ago, WhatsNext said:

 

On a day by day basis you are right, but consider the retirees in Hua hin as an example : Many buy a house / condo and plenty spend around 10MB or more for that. Also car(s) are bought and everything that comes with a house, furniture, electronics and so on. Then there is the maintenance which gives permanent work.

 

Plenty of people here where i live spend yearly more than 1MB above all the mentioned purchases. This each and every year, i think that's quite a bit more than Alex and Nancy the backpacker who come for a month, or the UK lowso that spends his cash on soi bukhao in Pattayaaaaaaa

Oh dear! How misinformed you are. Now we will quickly go to the straight facts. First the things that are already bought, you can not try to bring into the GDP of the next year or any years to come.

 

Regarding the spending power. Let´s say there is spending power of 1MB per year, from a small amount of the expat community. What will that do? Oh, yes! We have about 150k expats in Thailand. Most of them are also already here. I would say that it must be about 10k that can be stranded outside. Lets say that 5% of the expats have the spending power you are talking about. That will be a too high number, but I will make a good gesture and give it to you. That will then be an amount spended in a year of 10B baht that could be estimated losses.

Now we go to the tourist sector. Let´s just play with a small amount per day of 3k baht spended and only 1 week holiday. That would in general be 21k baht per tourist. How many tourists do we need then? That´s about 480 000 tourists. As they had far over 3 million tourists per month before, you can quickly see what is important. The expat community in Thailand will continue to be insignificant, but always keep trying to overvalue it´s importance regarding the Thai economy.

You ridiculous comment about the UK lowso that spendsw cash in Pattaya is also totally irrelevant. If you knew anything about Thailand, you would know that it will almost be same as the expat living with a Thai family in Isaan. That due to that the expat gives money to the family, and the girl sends a big part of the spended money in Pattaya to her family.

[sqwakvfr]

About a month ago there was an article about a state of the art Covid 19 Testing facility and laboratory that opened at Swampy Airport.  The official claimed this facility could conduct 1000 test per day.  Ok, if this actually is true then how about a maximum of 1000 arrival per day and each passenger gets tested  at his or her expense.  If the results take one, two or three days then the passenger could be quarantined for a short period.  If the results are negative then the passengers could be “freed” to roam as long as they have adequate health insurance.  This also presents a money making opportunity because the passenger would have to pay for the Covid 19 Test and short term quarantine.  Singapore recently announced arrival Covid 19 tests at Changi and they are charging 300 SGD per test.  How about charging $200 per test at Swampy?  For once I would like to see “out of the box thinking” from someone in this government??  

[expat1010]

open or not few tourist dollars will be coming this winter, thanks to the virus and the resulting recession

 

might as well open things up November 1, you might save a few businesses and associated jobs and you are unlikely to overwhelm the health system at this late stage of the pandemic

 

have to start getting back to normal sometime, why not the start of the winter tourist season

Edited August 29, 2020 by expat1010

[englishoak]

Meanwhile...In Nearby Malaysia, the government extended its pandemic-inspired restrictions, including a ban on foreign tourists, until the end of the year.

 

No Thais going to Malaysia then