Image: Reuters

 

It won't be until at least 2024 before Thailand’s tourism rebounds to that before the pandemic, according to the country’s finance minister.

 

Speaking on Wednesday, Arkhom Termpittayapaisith said that he expects 40 million international tourists to arrive in Thailand in 2024, Thansettakij reported. 

 

Mr Arkhom said that it will be 2022 before tourists arrive in any significant numbers, with a greater number arriving in 2023 once Thailand and other destinations fully re-open as the threat from the virus eases.

 

The news comes as Thailand is exploring numerous proposals in order to enable foreign tourists to visit the country.

 

Also on Wednesday, Tourism Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn outlined plans to enable tourists to visit Phuket from 1 July, without the need to quarantine.

 

The plan would see 70 percent of Phuket’s population, some 930,000 people, receive the COVID-19 vaccination.  Any foreign tourists visiting would also need to have received the vaccination and come from a so-called ‘low risk’ country.

 

If the proposal for Phuket proves successful, it would be rolled out to other popular tourist destinations in Thailand, namely Pattaya and Koh Samui by 1 October.

 

Meanwhile, Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul also announced that Thailand is in discussions with several countries about opening travel bubbles, although he stopped short of naming the countries involved.

 

 

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Just now, webfact said:

Speaking on Wednesday, Arkhom Termpittayapaisith said that he expects 40 million international tourists to arrive in Thailand in 2024,

Dream on pal, aint gonna happen, not in my life time anyway.

Must be Arkhoms turn to make a BS statement, get his name in the media.????????

4 minutes ago, webfact said:

Mr Arkhom said that it will be 2022 before tourists arrive in any significant numbers, with a greater number arriving in 2023 once Thailand and other destinations fully re-open as the threat from the virus eases.

 

At least that's a little more reasonable than previous estimates. 

So I can expect two and a half more years of 5-Star hotel rooms in Phuket for $20-$40; I'm not complaining. 

18 minutes ago, webfact said:

Anutin Charnvirakul also announced that Thailand is in discussions with several countries about opening travel bubbles,

This has been the case since last March. Number of travel bubbles actually started with Thailand? Zero. 
 

Bubbles can just about work between two countries with low infection rates and no land borders, but many bubbles started have been cancelled

Happy days are coming soon again, Thailand has spoken.  The grass is turning green again, well the wrong type of grass, and soon many will be smoking it, but it sounds like they may have been smoking it sooner rather than later.

I may have to go shoot myself if I read one more story predicting 40M this , 20M that...

 

At the end of the day, nobody really knows how travel will rebound, you might as well just break out the crystal ball.

 

Of course things will improve as countries get their vaccination programs rolled out, and people feel more comfortable traveling.

 

But how fast folks finances recover, and how much they want to spend on a long haul trip, I think is in the realms of pure speculation.

 

So try not to look years into the future, maybe just concentrate on a 6 months rolling forecast, which given all forecasts is destined to be wrong, but it'll be less wrong than trying to forecast 2 years hence

Look on the constructive side.

That gives them 3 years-ish to sort out things so it will be a 5☆ destination everywhere. Let's take Pattaya for example. All the flooding problems, all the sewage disposal problems along with a 'rebuilt' beach can be done.

Everything on the waterside of walking street can be torn down and a real marina built to attract those well heeled tourists in their 50metre yachts. ( May even have  parking for the 'rollers' etc. ) not sure about the helicopters though.

Beach road could become pedestrian only, unless you have enough folding stuff to allow you to take your HiSo Camry on it.

I have many more ideas but I may need to start a 'go fund me' to get everything absolutely correct.

How do I go about it??

I believe Thailand has damaged its reputation too much to ever get back to pre C19 tourist levels.

Random lockdowns, racist actions and remarks from those running the country, the blatent stripping of tourists funds to pay the government connected businesses, the crazy amount of paperwork, the 112 law, arrest and deportation for a bad hotel review, deportation for pics with sea creatures, outrageous violence and imprisonment of protestors blah blah blah. The list goes on and on, and unfortunately for the Thais it is not going unoticed by the rest of the world.

The ease of finding prostitutes and a sunny climate will bring plenty back, but some of the above will also keep some tourists away.

 

4 hours ago, Pattaya Spotter said:

So I can expect two and a half more years of 5-Star hotel rooms in Phuket for $20-$40; I'm not complaining. 

Can you send a link to any 5 star hotel in Phuket giving out rooms for $20 / 600 Baht a night please, plan on taking a vaccation with family in end April. 

11 hours ago, webfact said:

Speaking on Wednesday, Arkhom Termpittayapaisith said that he expects 40 million international tourists to arrive in Thailand in 2024, Thansettakij reported. 

If the world isn't open and operational at the end of this year (or start next), then world and personal debt, travel and airline bankruptcies and world unemployment will put a severe hole in that figure and prediction. 

7 hours ago, saakura said:

Can you send a link to any 5 star hotel in Phuket giving out rooms for $20 / 600 Baht a night please, plan on taking a vaccation with family in end April. 

The $20 range is more in the 4-Star category...5-Star is more $30 -$40. I don't want to violate the Forum's advertising rules by promoting specific properties publicly but if you PM me, I will share some of the places I've stayed this past month and have booked for the the next.

The Hotel Association and TAT should all Read "Who Moved My Cheese?" They are in the maze and still looking for the same cheese.

With the entire country choking on air pollution, with the worst in the north,

bad air that comes from China all year, I don't think their tourist numbers will ever

be the same again.  Entire SE Asia is also choking on toxic air all year for the same reason.

Throw in expensive covid insurance, where they probably won't pay a claim in the first place,

there are much better places to visit.

What if it never happens??

 

Unless COVID-23 pops up.

 

Assume these pronouncements are for local consumption, essentially political promises to keep the public assuaged, and keep the coalition together, and avoid a snap election.

 

 

Let's not be too hasty to be negative. I dont think it's a wholly unrealistic expectation, but it is dependent on many other factors, notwithstanding vaccines keeping ahead of the curve in terms of dealign with mutation. Also - by that point we may have built up some global resistance to the virus?

 

I wish Thailand all the best in restoring some of her former touristy glory.

 

14 hours ago, DJBenz said:

 

At least that's a little more reasonable than previous estimates. 

Agreed.
Keep  in mind that pre-pandemic they were almost at the 40 mil arrivals mark.
IF the vaccinations work (iffy as they never really had a chance to properly research and test them before they went into mass production) they will start letting people back in. And around the world, life will return to a semblance of normalcy and people who've been cooped up at home will be itching to travel.

(A lot of people have this weird notion that the entire planet has been out of work since the crisis began and therefore have no money. Which is really dumb. Even in Thailand, the vast majority of people are still working. Just not as many in the touristy spots, which some seem to think is the only thing people do in this country even though International Tourism only accounts for 12-16% of the total GDP. Gee, I wonder what makes up the other 84-88% of the GDP if tourism is the only thing keeping the country running ?) 

3 years to get back to where they were at the end of 2019 basically. Once the virus has been contained (more or less) and things start getting back to normal, people will start travelling again.

And 99.9999% won't even know about "random" lockdowns (which is BS to begin with as there were NO "random" lockdowns), which wouldn't be an issue anyways. If the vaccinations and containment have been effective.
Just like 99.9999% won't have a clue about the racism present. (Most of the tourists that come here have no clue about things like double pricing because they never see it. It's the expats and "genuine tourists" living here on multiple tourist visas that see the things like foreigners being charged 5-10 times more than the locals to see the same trees and waterfalls or whatever.)

THINK about it. Tourism numbers dropped the year after the Tsunami in the Andaman Sea (which devastated Phuket amongst other places). Up to 2004 the numbers had been steadily increasing. They dropped in 2005 (because of the Tsunami) and then reached a new high in 2006. One year was all it took before they started getting even more tourists than before the Tsunami.

Even when all the problems were happening with the "red" and "yellow" shirts, with shootings and grenades being thrown, the airport being taken over, the (former) PM fleeing to escape a prison sentence and military coups - the number of arrivals kept climbing !! (Apparently the tourists didn't pay any attention to the TVF members who back then claimed that all those things would kill tourism.)

In fact, the numbers were climbing so fast that within a couple years of opening the new Suvarnabhumi airport, they had already reached it's maximum capacity and they had to start the first expansion years earlier than originally planned. Phase 2 was also started early and they just announced approval for another major upgrade.
(One of the reasons U-Tapao was expanded and the road networks improved in Rayong/Chon Buri was to try and divert some of the air traffic from Suvarnabhumi to U-Tapao to reduce the strain.)

They won't get 40 mil arrivals overnight. If they are able to let people in this year, they might get a couple million by the end of the year. Next year would be more. 2023 might, if things are going well, be around half of the pre-pandemic level and maybe by the end of 2024 they could be close to the 40 mil mark again.

Here's a clue. A couple months ago it was announced that China had already passed the amount of exports (monthly) it had been doing before the pandemic. Which means two things.
Most of China is still working (and probably dying to go on holiday somewhere).
Most of the world is still buying whatever China is exporting (meaning most of the world is still working and making money).

But it all hinges on the vaccinations and containment of the virus. If those are effective, tourists will start returning to Thailand and they will - easily - pass the numbers they were receiving before pandemic.

And all the "doom and gloomers" who think everything is the "straw that will break the back" of tourism in Thailand will have to find a new straw to whine about. Just like they do whenever there is an alcohol ban and they chime up that it will (yawn) be that "straw" then have to watch as even more tourists arrive despite their claims.

 

i think there fortune tellers are at it again i think their crystal balls cracked or broken 

16 hours ago, colinneil said:

Dream on pal, aint gonna happen, not in my life time anyway.

Must be Arkhoms turn to make a BS statement, get his name in the media.????????

No chance with the archaic visa process and hatred of all things foreign .. They have red taped themselves out of tourist market 

16 hours ago, GinBoy2 said:

I may have to go shoot myself if I read one more story predicting 40M this , 20M that...

 

At the end of the day, nobody really knows how travel will rebound, you might as well just break out the crystal ball.

 

Of course things will improve as countries get their vaccination programs rolled out, and people feel more comfortable traveling.

 

But how fast folks finances recover, and how much they want to spend on a long haul trip, I think is in the realms of pure speculation.

 

So try not to look years into the future, maybe just concentrate on a 6 months rolling forecast, which given all forecasts is destined to be wrong, but it'll be less wrong than trying to forecast 2 years hence

I completely agree that nobody has any idea what will happen. 

But American companies also want to have projections, forecasts etc.. some want rosy projections,  some pessimistic- but nobody wants to accept that we simply don't know 

16 hours ago, Thaiophil said:

This has been the case since last March. Number of travel bubbles actually started with Thailand? Zero. 
 

Bubbles can just about work between two countries with low infection rates and no land borders, but many bubbles started have been cancelled

 

lots of talks & bubbles.

NO action and hence NO results

I have lived in Wuhan (and continue to) the last seven years.

 

Nobody is entering China until at least after the February 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Even with one of the now five Chinese vaccines, there's no guarantee to foreigners we can leave or re-enter, or, best case scenario, go through HK into the mainland after a 14 day quarantine even with the vaccine.

 

Many medical personnel (I know a nurse who is refusing) and roughly 90% of private and public company employees are refusing to get the vaccines here, even for free.

 

Without herd immunity, it's going to take well over a year from now, likely the summer of 2022, before ANYTHING starts to approximate normal.

We still wear masks on subways/buses/into shopping malls something like 8 or 9 months after the last active SINGLE case of Covid-19 in Wuhan.

 

They're not going to dare to let the Brazilian variant into the country.  They want to control the narrative over the Olympics, boycott, spats with the EU/US/UK, vaccine wars against the west and over the developing world...and now the Xinjiang/cotton issue.

No way in hell anyone from China will be allowed to travel back and forth to countries whose local population haven't reached herd immunity, even though we only have like 2.5% of the population immunized here.

 

As we get closer to April 1st, today 40 million the 1st the gate will open to everyone with no restriction the new norm will be the same as the old? ????

They still steer ahead with lottery and gambling like mindsets. 

Thailand expects (hopes and prays!) 40 million tourists by 2024? More useless,  imaginary numbers picked out of the hat by the muppets ????????

Why don't they wait until people have been vaccinated 

And the Corivirus numbers around the world are decreasing 

Then maybe come out with some realistic future numbers on when tourists will be arriving here in Thailand ?

We are hearing different numbers daily with out any good reasons why

17 hours ago, GinBoy2 said:

But how fast folks finances recover, and how much they want to spend on a long haul trip, I think is in the realms of pure speculation.

 

From my point of view, I think governments in Asia got it wrong, Thailand had about 28,000 infections thus far with 82 deaths if memory serves me correct, now that is 0.29%. 

 

Before anybody pounces off of their springboard, yes those rates are with their borders closed, so the question is, how high would the mortality rate be if they opened up their borders, no doubt higher, but enough to warrant sinking their economies ? 

 

Make of that what you will, a lot of fear out there, and we all know what fear does, or do we ?

 

This is an extract from WHO with the entire link below:

 

Very low infection fatality rates seem common in Asian countries.^{8,11,29,48,49,51,59,61,67} A younger population in these countries (excluding Japan), previous immunity from exposure to other coronaviruses, genetic differences, hygiene etiquette, lower infectious load and other unknown factors may explain these low rates. The infection fatality rate is low also in low-income countries in both Asia and Africa,^44,49,66,67 perhaps reflecting the young age structure. However, comorbidities, poverty, frailty (e.g. malnutrition) and congested urban living circumstances may have an adverse effect on risk and thus increase infection fatality rate.

 

https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/99/1/20-265892/en/

 

 

 

 

 

 

18 hours ago, webfact said:

It won't be until at least 2024 before Thailand’s tourism rebounds to that before the pandemic, according to the country’s finance minister.

 

 

No doubt coming for the fresh air.???????????? 

 

 

 

 

 

Headline says 'by 2024', which to me implies all of 2021, 2022, 2023. 

 

text in article says 'in 2024'. 

 

I am confused, but not enough to know that this sort of statement from any government minister is meaningless. No one knows what's going to happen next week, let a!one in 3-4 years.

Statements for the sake of something to say and the media laps it up.