#coronovirus #impact-summary
Thailand

Thailand

THA believes minimum wage increase and record-high power tariff will negatively impact the hotel industry.
Lockdown Status
Open
Inbound Travel
Open
Outbound Travel
Open
Confirmed
4,678,352
65,339 per million
7 Day Rolling Ave
+709 •
-15% vs prev week
Deaths
32,718
456.9 per million
Fully Vaccinated
53,464,864
74.67% of pop.
Source: Cases - John Hopkins University (2022-09-24). Vaccine - Government of Thailand (2022-09-23). Retrieved from OurWorldInData.org

Latest Travel Industry News

Policy Summary

Lockdown Status

Whole country classified as green zone. All economic activities permitted to reopen, including serving of alcohol and entertainment venues.

Travel Restrictions

Vaccinated travellers are permitted to enter Thailand without quarantine. Unvaccinated travellers with pre-departure RT-PCR test/ professional antigen test will also be allowed entry.

Economy Summary

Fiscal support for the tourism industry

Relief measures for airlines (15 Jan):

  • The Civil Aviation Board (CAB) has extended its relief measures for airlines by an additional 3 months to 31 Mar

  • Includes a reduction of landing and parking charges by 50%, and a waiver on parking charges for those airlines unable to operate

  • Thailand airports will also extend the payment of landing and parking charges for 9 months

Pattaya Budget (26 Nov 2021):

  • 1.6 billion THB budget for 2022 in Pattaya has been approved

  • Includes 2.5 million THB allocated for a roadshow to promote itself to North and Northeast provinces

We Travel Together Phase 3 (25 Sep 2021):

  • Opened for registration for 2 million people

  • Those who succeed in registering can book rooms from 8 Oct for travel from 15 Oct until 28 Feb 2022

  • Subsidies include up to 40% off their room cost up to 3,000 THB per night, 40% off air tickets, and 600 THB daily with food vouchers

  • Phases 1 and 2 generated 24 billion THB in circulation

SMEs (25 Sep 2021):

  • 100 billion THB has been allocated by the government to help SMEs with the pandemic

Tour Tiew Thai (24 Sep 2021):

  • The Tour Tiew Thai domestic tourism stimulus campaign has been approved from 15 Oct-28 Feb 2022, with some changes

  • Interprovincial travel is now permitted all days, and the number of itineraries agents can sell is 30 from 15

  • The government will subsidise 40% of the tour package, up to 5,000 THB per pax

Airline ticket rebates, vouchers, hotel booking subsidies, and tourism packages under the We Travel Together scheme (4 Dec 2020)

Extension of SME loan plans (5 Nov 2020)

Jet fuel tax cut (3 Nov 2020)

Extension of the We Travel Together scheme (8 Oct 2020)

2 million THB allocated for expats tourism subsidy (1 Sep 2020)

Extension of the We Travel Together domestic tourism subsidy scheme (20 Aug 2020)

Domestic tourism subsidy worth 22.4 billion THB (17 Jun 2020)

Phase 3 budget (7 Apr 2020)

Phase 2 budget (24 Mar 2020)

Phase 1 budget (4 Mar 2020)

GDP Growth Rate

% per year
2.2
2019
-6.2
2020
1.6
2021
3.0
2022
forecast
4.5
2023
forecast

Inflation Rate

% per year
0.7
2019
-0.8
2020
1.2
2021
3.3
2022
forecast
2.2
2023
forecast
Source: Asian Development Bank. Asian Development Outlook (April 2022).

Consumer Trends Summary

Visa's Voice of the Consumer Survey (Nov 2021):

  • 51% of Thai respondents are likely to take a leisure trip in Thailand in the next year

  • 23% are planning to travel overseas in 2022

  • 51% of consumers watched travel videos on YouTube, 41% checked out travel sites on social media and 30% took a road trip

  • 53% of travellers wants to book safe and quality-assured accommodation, 44% use contactless and digital payments and 42% avoided crowded tourist attractions

  • 3 factors to make Thai travellers comfortable to travel again include: being vaccinated (67%), a reduction in the virus (55%) and buying COVID insurance (41%)

  • The top 5 overseas destinations for Thai travellers include Japan, China, Australia, South Korea and Canada/ France

  • 48% want to travel within a travel bubble, but not in the immediate future

  • 33% are keen to travel as soon as possible, when a travel bubble is available

  • 19% are not interested in travel bubbles

Booking.com 2022 Travel Predictions (Oct 2021):

  • 76% of travelers are looking forward to meeting new people while on vacation

  • 80% of travelers find that the journey to a destination is more enjoyable when it feels like part of the trip itself

  • 76% of travelers say vacation time will be strictly work-free in the future

  • 86% of travelers agree that travel helps their mental and emotional wellbeing more than other forms of self-care

  • 74% of travelers agree it’s important that their trip is beneficial to the destination's local community

  • 51% are going to do more research into how their tourism spending will affect or improve local communities

  • 77% of travelers are now more open to different types of vacations

  • 85% of travelers agree that technology will be more important than ever while on vacation

  • 79% of travelers believe technology is important for controlling health risks when traveling, with 83% agreeing that technology helps to alleviate their travel anxiety

Agoda Sustainable Travel Trends Survey 2021 (Aug 2021):

  • More Thais are most concerned the impact tourism plays on overtourism, deforestation for tourism, and energy waste or inefficiency

  • 30% of Thais believe they themselves are most responsible, followed by tourism authorities (25%), and governments (24%), for making changes within the sustainable travel space

  • Thais pledge to manage their own waste by using less single-use plastics (53%), during travel period, always look for eco-friendly accommodation (37%), and switch the air conditioners and lights off when leaving room (31%) when they travel in the post COVID period

  • Practices that are considered most helpful to travel sustainably by Thais are accommodations using renewable energy or water sources (31%), reusable amenities (20%), and key cards to power electricity in an accommodation (15%)

  • When asked what practices associate with sustainability, 47% considered use of renewable resources, 41% animal conservation, and 35% use of natural cleaning products

  • The additional measures to help make travel more sustainable are easy identification of sustainable/eco-friendly travel options, financial incentives to accommodation providers who maximize energy efficiency, and limiting use of single-use plastic in airlines or accommodations.

Consumer Sentiment Chart
Containment Policies Timeline
How to read this graph
International Travel Restrictions
  • 0 - no restrictions
  • 1 - screening arrivals
  • 2 - quarantine arrivals from some or all regions
  • 3 - ban arrivals from some regions
  • 4 - ban on all regions or total border closure
Internal Movement Restrictions
  • 0 - no restrictions
  • 1 - recommend not to travel between regions/cities
  • 2 - internal movement restrictions in place
Stay At Home Requirements
  • 0 - no measures
  • 1 - recommend not leaving house
  • 2 - require not leaving house with exceptions for daily exercise, grocery shopping, and 'essential' trips
  • 3 - require not leaving house with minimal exceptions (eg allowed to leave once a week, or only one person can leave at a time, etc)
School Closures
  • 0 - no measures
  • 1 - recommend closing
  • 2 - require closing (only some levels or categories, eg just high school, or just public schools)
  • 3 - require closing all levels

Tourism Arrivals Summary

International Tourism Arrivals

YoY % change
2.5
Jan'20
-42.8
Feb
-76.1
Mar
-100.0
Apr
-100.0
May
-100.0
Jun
-100.0
Jul
-100.0
Aug
-99.9
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan'21
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Source: Ministry of Tourism & Sports Thailand.

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Travel impact dashboard is an easy-to-read resource to stay informed on the impact of COVID-19 on the travel industry. Get the latest travel news and analysis on Southeast Asia tourism.

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The content is a general description of informative nature only and is accurate at time of publication. Pear Anderson assumes no responsibility for completeness, errors or omissions in the information and makes no warranty as to the accuracy, completeness or suitability of the information. This collection of content is created by Pear Anderson and various sources credited on the page.