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BANGKOK (BLOOMBERG) – Thailand is finalizing a plan that would allow retired Europeans seeking the sun to spend the next winter months in the country in an effort to save its ailing tourism industry.
Although the Asian nation’s borders have been closed to most foreigners since late March to combat the coronavirus pandemic, the government now plans to grant visas to foreigners who want to stay in Thailand for up to nine months, Boon Vanasin said, President of Thonburi. Healthcare Group, the third largest private hospital company in the country, which operates hospitals and retirement homes.
These long-term visitors will begin their stay with a mandatory 14-day quarantine and various virus tests at the Phuket resort.
After three weeks on the island and negative test results, they would be able to travel freely to other Thai regions, according to Boon, who said he has direct knowledge of the government’s plan and expects arrivals to start before winter.
While the government approved the plan in principle, it is still finalizing measures to reduce the risk of virus infections, government spokesman Traisulee Traisoranakul said.
The opening is a lifeline for Thailand’s devastated tourism and hotel industry, struggling to survive after five months without foreign visitors.
Although Thailand has been one of the most successful countries in the world in curbing Covid-19 (it has not had a case of local transmission for three months), its economy dependent on tourism has been one of the most affected globally, and expected to contract with a record 8.5 percent this year.
The move comes as economies dependent on tourism, from Bali in Indonesia to Hawaii in the United States, are faced with the pandemic, which has practically stopped world travel.
The reopening to tourists has led to a resurgence of the infection in some places like the Caribbean island of Aruba, and governments fear finding the wrong balance between public health and financial aid.
Thailand’s new plan will make it possible for millions of older people in European countries like Germany and Sweden, who generally spend their winter months in warmer Mediterranean countries, to consider the Asian nation instead, as it is safe from the risk of infection. Boon said.
He said his company has answered inquiries from European retirement communities that could number 50,000 seniors who will travel to Thailand next winter.
It plans to partner with hotels to provide quarantine facilities and long-term accommodation for seniors and other long-stay visitors, who could arrive on chartered flights before winter begins.
Thai Airways International said it will operate at least two such flights a month from the end of November to connect Phuket with countries such as Denmark, Germany and Great Britain.
“Many older people don’t want to spend their time in a cold, harsh winter. They want a tropical climate,” said Mr. Boon.
About 90 percent of Thonburi’s clients before the pandemic were international.
But it is not clear whether the government intends to let in so many foreigners.
On Thursday (August 27), Thailand’s deputy army chief said the country was weighing plans to reopen to long-stay visitors and foreigners who own local property, but this would amount to only “hundreds” of people.
The economy urgently needs a boost.
Before the pandemic, European tourists vacationed in and around Phuket for between two weeks and two months, said Bhummikitti Ruktaengam, president of the Phuket Tourism Association.
More than 6.7 million Europeans visited Thailand in 2019 and contributed 461 billion baht (20.1 billion Singapore dollars) to the Thai economy, according to government data.
They accounted for about 17 percent of total foreign visitors and 24 percent of total spending abroad.
“Phuket’s economy needs foreign demand to pick up, but we also have to balance infection risks and the economy,” Bhummikitti said.
The Thai government has been trying to promote domestic tourism with a campaign to pay 40 percent of travelers’ hotel bills, but local spending alone cannot make up for the loss of foreigners.
In Phuket, foreign visitors accounted for two-thirds of all tourists, but contributed 90 percent of its tourism revenue.
“We will allow a small number of foreign visitors to enter the country first to test our system,” Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said Wednesday.
“We have to do something so that the situation does not get worse with the closure of companies and people losing their jobs.”
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