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BANGKOK (BLOOMBERG) – Thailand is easing travel restrictions for visitors from 56 countries, including Singapore, Japan and the United States, ahead of peak holiday season to boost the country’s ailing tourism sector.
Tourists can enter Thailand without prior visas, but will need to carry a health certificate to show they are Covid-19 free and undergo a mandatory 14-day quarantine upon arrival, according to Taweesilp Witsanuyotin, spokesperson for the Center for Situations Management. Covid-19.
Visitors will also undergo three virus tests while in quarantine, an increase from the two previously required, Taweesilp said.
More frequent tests for visitors during quarantine could help the government shorten the isolation period to 10 days from next month, he added.
The quarantine will help authorities prevent visitors from spreading the virus locally and is seen as a more effective strategy than limiting access to tourists from so-called low-risk countries amid a new surge in cases worldwide, he said. Taweesilp.
“The definition of which countries are low-risk or high-risk changes every day. Let’s allow everyone to enter, but quarantine them upon arrival,” Taweesilp said in a briefing on Thursday (December 17).
Travelers from the 56 designated countries, which also include Australia, Italy and France, will be able to stay up to 30 days for tourism activities as part of Thailand’s unilateral agreements from before the pandemic.
Citizens of five countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru and South Korea) can stay in Thailand for 90 days, according to the Covid-19 panel. But the country will not issue visas on arrival or allow 14 days of free travel for those from Cambodia and Myanmar until the virus outbreak improves, he said.
“These are new processes and models for travel that we must adjust to in the new normal,” Taweesilp said.
Thailand is relaxing restrictions on foreign tourists after a special long-term visa program introduced in September prompted a lukewarm response and authorities were forced to suspend a successful travel subsidy program for local tourists to investigate corruption allegations. .
Thailand is betting on a revival of its tourism industry out of the recession, and the central bank forecasts that it may take at least two years for Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy to return to pre-pandemic growth levels.
Foreign tourist arrivals generated more than US $ 60 billion (Singapore $ 80 billion) in revenue from some 40 million visitors last year.
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