Fear and confusion in Thailand’s tourism industry as near-bankrupt hotels decline foreign tourists

[webfact]

Fear and confusion in Thailand’s tourism industry as near-bankrupt hotels decline foreign tourists

by Carla Boonkong & Pranee O' Connor

 

 

Several initiatives including the ‘Phuket Model’ and only last week, a 9-month long-stay visa for foreign tourists, have been announced but nothing is yet finalised. All are subject to not only stringent requirements but also limited flight capacity with a reliance on chartered flights. Thailand’s tourism industry will not rebound, even in a limited way, to anything like its former level of earnings without free market access and a sizable air passenger flight network. Studies in the UK are showing that the countries that are reopening successfully to tourism are relying on airport testing for the virus both before and after flights as the most reliable screening method.

 

Despite an announcement, last Tuesday, of a new 9-month tourist visa for long-stay travellers with deep pockets and another announcement by the Ministry of Health of another initiative suggesting a quarantine at-home requirement, the current position is that there is no, as yet defined, route open to foreign tourists to return to Thailand. The situation for foreigners outside of Thailand contemplating the kingdom as a possible holiday destination looks quite chaotic and confusing right now. Not least, a report from Krabi, this week, where a Thai Senate panel heard that only two hotels in the province were amenable to accepting foreign tourists as customers at this time. 

 

Thailand’s government has yet to provide a definite and viable path for foreign tourists to return to the kingdom despite the approval of a long-stay visa proposal by the cabinet on Tuesday and an agreement in principle in August for what was called the ‘Phuket model’ approach. In the meantime, there is dismay and confusion as a Senate panel heard last week that only two hotels in the province of Krabi wish to see the return of foreign tourists at all and the Ministry of Public Health suggests that quarantine may also be required at home including testing prior to travel. It is also reported that the only flights into Thailand for such tourists will be chartered ones.

 

Full story: https://www.thaiexaminer.com/thai-news-foreigners/2020/09/21/fear-confusion-thailands-tourism-industry-bankrupt-hotels-decline-foreign-tourists/

 

-- © Copyright Thai Examiner 2020-09-22

 

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[Damrongsak]

No clue.  As always. 

[Fex Bluse]

21 minutes ago, webfact said:

Thailand’s tourism industry will not rebound, even in a limited way, to anything like its former level of earnings without free market access and a sizable air passenger flight network.

 

21 minutes ago, webfact said:

The situation for foreigners outside of Thailand contemplating the kingdom as a possible holiday destination looks quite chaotic and confusing right now.

Surprisingly decent article. Essentially, there's not much the Thais can do to help their situation in the short-term. And, their totally confusing policy doesn't help. 

[Justgrazing]

43 minutes ago, webfact said:

 

Despite an announcement, last Tuesday, of a new 9-month tourist visa for long-stay travellers with deep pockets and

short memories .?

[torturedsole]

48 minutes ago, webfact said:

as near-bankrupt hotels decline foreign tourists

A very sad state of affairs.

 

Hotels aren't satellite outposts operating autonomously. There's management and the mid to lower rungs, middle office, back office, front of house, cleaners, facilities and suppliers of a multitude of products and those reliant on the suppliers and it goes on.  

 

Six months of global lockdown is way past the point of no return.  

 

Edited September 21, 2020 by torturedsole

[metisdead]

A post using a trolling video has been removed. 

[Grumpy John]

If the government just came out with a sensible workable strategy and stick to it things could improve rapidly. At the moment it's a bit like the committee set up to build the perfect race horse that Ended up with a camel! 

Edited September 21, 2020 by Grumpy John
Smelling

[jabis]

And little did they know - were digging their own graves... 

[PingRoundTheWorld]

2 hours ago, torturedsole said:

Six months of global lockdown is way past the point of no return.  

You mean six months of Thailand lockdown. The world has mostly moved on and there is limited tourism going on in Europe and America. Thai government has managed to destroy this sector for at least the next few years.

[tonray]

12 minutes ago, PingRoundTheWorld said:

You mean six months of Thailand lockdown. The world has mostly moved on and there is limited tourism going on in Europe and America. Thai government has managed to destroy this sector for at least the next few years.

Parts of Europe currently about to re-impose lockdown measures as the seconda wave takes hold

[graemeaylward]

11 minutes ago, PingRoundTheWorld said:

You mean six months of Thailand lockdown. The world has mostly moved on and there is limited tourism going on in Europe and America. Thai government has managed to destroy this sector for at least the next few years.

Yes but look at the resurgence of Covid in those areas as a result of opening up to all and sundry too soon! I know where I would rather be at the moment. 

[Fex Bluse]

@sandyf hi. Hope you are well. I'm really surprised the local tourism spending could not fill a bigger gap. 

[rtco]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

Thailand’s government has yet to provide a definite and viable path for foreign tourists to return to the kingdom

There's a line from the Sweet song Blockbusters that comes to mind ... they just haven't got a clue what to do!

[pkrv]

Open the borders. Save what little of the tourism industry is possible, presuming you do in fact wish to keep it.

Second waves? Maybe, but the actual death rate is comparable or less than other viruses that humanity is exposed to, and in most cases readily accepts. A vaccine would of course help, but any proper vaccine must have clinical trials and be proven, which takes times.

Covid-19 is not a killer plague that is ravaging planet Earth and destroying the majority of humanity. Economic disaster - due to the (over)reaction - and its consequences will likely have a greater overall effect.

Edited September 22, 2020 by pkrv

[yellowboat]

This is happening everywhere.  I live near the Novotel in Saigon.  There one person at check in and there is rarely anyone in the lobby.  Many smaller hotels are out of business. Bui Vien street has been decimated.  At the same time, the only time I wear a mask is when entering an office building or going into a shop.  

[GeorgeCross]

26 minutes ago, pkrv said:

Open the borders. Save what little of the tourism industry is possible, presuming you do in fact wish to keep it.

Second waves? Maybe, but the actual death rate is comparable or less than other viruses that humanity is exposed to, and in most cases readily accepts. A vaccine would of course help, but any proper vaccine must have clinical trials and be proven, which takes times.

Covid-19 is not a killer plague that is ravaging planet Earth and destroying the majority of humanity. Economic disaster - due to the (over)reaction - and its consequences will likely have a greater overall effect.

 

currently 968,905 (dead) people beg to differ.

 

and thats with lockdowns, nobody knows just how huge that number could have been by now if we had left deniers like yourself in charge.

 

 

[soalbundy]

This too will pass. Nothing is as bad as it's made out to be. In the market town near me you wouldn't know there is a pandemic only in those areas in the country where tourism has taken over as the breadwinner are affected. Given a little time they can revert back to the way things were before Mr, Herr, and Monsieur began flashing money. The transition will be painful at first and not all tourism will be lost but it won't be so overweight as it was and that will be a good thing because after the pandemic is before the pandemic. The next pandemic is sure to be around the corner, global warming will see to that, already the frozen tundra is melting and with it are bacteria arising, not seen for millions of years. Bacteria from the seabed 60 million years old have been awakened to life in the laboratory and our antibiotics are already failing to do their work effectively, brave new world.

[saminoz]

1 hour ago, tonray said:

Parts of Europe currently about to re-impose lockdown measures as the seconda wave takes hold

True.  My colleague spent most of the European lockdown in his native Norway.  A couple of weeks ago he flew to his home in the South of France.

Now he is scrambling to get flights back to Norway before they impose the second lockdown in France.  He reckons it will close again by the weekend.

[Trujillo]

Some Thais who own hotels don't want the dirty farangs back? I am SHOCKED!!!!

[Big Yuley]

1 hour ago, PingRoundTheWorld said:

You mean six months of Thailand lockdown. The world has mostly moved on and there is limited tourism going on in Europe and America. Thai government has managed to destroy this sector for at least the next few years.

Speak for yourself. Most countries still have borders closed, and I in Melbourne Australia, The worlds most liveable city is about 78 days into Stage 4 lock down (cant go further than 5kms from your home, only can go out for essential shopping or doctors, curfew and cant go out after 9pm at night, cant go to anyone else home, can only exercise for 2 hours a day (1 hour at a time). All cafes, restaurants, businesses, retails shops closed. And the kicked, we still have another month of it.  City of 6 million people, today we had 28 cases, yesterday 11, day before 8....

 

I wish i lived in a part of the world which was opened up...

[hotchilli]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

Several initiatives including the ‘Phuket Model’ and only last week, a 9-month long-stay visa for foreign tourists, have been announced but nothing is yet finalised. All are subject to not only stringent requirements but also limited flight capacity with a reliance on chartered flights. Thailand’s tourism industry will not rebound, even in a limited way, to anything like its former level of earnings without free market access and a sizable air passenger flight network. Studies in the UK are showing that the countries that are reopening successfully to tourism are relying on airport testing for the virus both before and after flights as the most reliable screening method.

That's the truth right there...

But T.A.T and the sports & tourism minister seem to have this rose tinted idea that all will be fine next month.

[BritManToo]

Just now, bobbin said:

The fact that there are higher fatalities from other causes is a red herring, designed to distract from the issue.. The fact is that nobody wants to be infected during a highly contagious pandemic. Death is not the only risk from Covid-19. Getting infected is like playing Russian roulette.

Highly contagious pandemic = 80% of infected dead IMHO (not .065% dead).

This is a trivial illness that everyone will get, and hardly anyone would normally worry about.

Same as colds, flu, herpes, HPV ............... et al.

[Orac]

The reality of the situation is as much political as it is a health issue for Thailand. They have done well/been lucky so far in apparently keeping this virus out even though it is clearly here as someone caught it who hadn’t been out of the country.  
 

For the government to ‘open the borders’ they would effectively be changing the strategy from a ‘keep it out’ one to a ‘let it in’ one and would end up being blamed for every death that could be associated with it - something that with the current protests and political friction would be the end of them.

[Isaan sailor]

No rush for potential western tourists.  Everyone knows when Thailand opens the floodgates—those hordes from Wuhan virusland will overflow and destroy tranquility and peace.

[Khun Paul]

Vaccine thoughts on Holidays and generally :

 

We all forget a VACCINE , its  only purpose is to reduce the severity of the Virus should you catch it.
IT DOES NOT stop you spreading it .
IT DOES NOT stop you catching it.
IT DOES however means that you will probably not need to be hospitalised.

You can have a vaccine and still become a carrier and possibly, show some symptoms ( but they will not kill you )

So anyone who has had the vaccine could technically transmit it to a population which in the main have not be vaccinated, thereby causing an uptick in the cases, Governments are operating with tunnel vision , stating a vaccine will solve all problems.
So people get Flu jabs still suffer mildly from Flu , according to the WHO,
The common flu causes up to 5 million cases of severe illness worldwide and kills up to 650,000 people every year, according to the World Health Organization .
Yet there has been vaccine for this for years. NOW tell me that a Vaccine for Covid will cure all the economic problems and allow tourists to come back .

Science is in charge here, not the half-baked ideas thrown around by Governments . Viruses are particularly nasty bugs and their effectiveness , has been proven over centuries, Black Death, Plagues( albeit mostly transmitted by small animals and insects) Spanish Flu, Flu generally and now this ( which highlighted our lack of personal hygenie ).

Complacency is the killer , people refusing or even admitting ( POTUS ) the dangers and the severity even though Chine did warn us all in Jan/Feb, the world did not believe .
People constantly complaining about restrictions, not seeing that it will require most of us intelligent free speaking people to follow the guidelines, in order to contain this virus or else we are all doomed and why because people have the right to complain and object, ( which is fine and dandy ) but it would appear those same people are part of the problem allowing this to carry on by NOT THINKING just by being selfish and sod the rest.

So the sooner most of us even those here, stop the whinging and moaning and learn to live with this by changing our habit and attitudes ( including calling it a hoax ) then we can start living again .
People moan about restrictions the only difference between this and War is that with as war you have a tangible enemy , see them, kill them problem solved, with this it is still a war but this time the enemy is invisible, cannot be killed , possibly subjugcated but never killed. Like wartime there were those who objected like now, but their actions did not affect the general population. NOW , however their actions could !.

[Elkski]

Let's get back on topic.  Why only 2 hotels in Krabi will accept foreigners?  Because the other  hotels worry they will hurt

their new growing thai busines?

[bobbin]

1 hour ago, BritManToo said:

Highly contagious pandemic = 80% of infected dead IMHO (not .065% dead).

This is a trivial illness that everyone will get, and hardly anyone would normally worry about.

Same as colds, flu, herpes, HPV ............... et al.

Not true, BritManToo.. .065%? where do you get that figure? 30 million+ cases worldwide. 1 million deaths. 3+%?. USA 5million+ cases. Approx. 200,000 deaths. 4%? Canada 90,000 cases. 9,000 deaths. 10%?

 

Death is not the only negative outcome from infection.. Many follow-on impacts on health for those not dying.

 

Over-counts? Under-counts? The Law of Large Numbers tells the tale,

Edited September 22, 2020 by bobbin

[ChipButty]

9 minutes ago, Elkski said:

Let's get back on topic.  Why only 2 hotels in Krabi will accept foreigners?  Because the other  hotels worry they will hurt

their new growing thai busines?

There is only 3 in Phuket and 2 of them is the same company and from what I know, which is not much, the cost involved in converting the hotel to the standard they require is not worth it for the amount of business coming to Phuket, 

[bobbin]

16 minutes ago, Elkski said:

Let's get back on topic.  Why only 2 hotels in Krabi will accept foreigners?  Because the other  hotels worry they will hurt

their new growing thai busines?

This is the topic..

 

Why only 2 hotels willing to accept foreigners? Because their staff will not show up for work if they care for themselves and their families..

[mrfaroukh]

The problem is no one is interested in 2 weeks quarantine that is going to cost them 3000 to 8000 US$. Tourist don't have few months holiday. I have a retirement visa, rent a flat in Pattaya which I still have. Currently outside Thailand and would like to go back. Why can't I be quarantine in my own place? If they need people to have long stay in Thailand or will be us who left the country before pandemic and now we can't go back. As long as they force people to stay 2 weeks in hotel of their choice that is going to cost huge amount not many people would be interested to go back.