Thailand threw a tourism occasion. Nobody arrived.

OPINION

The Thai government, flushed from the success of its containment of Covid-19, decided to market the Land of Smiles as a safe place to travel to the world. As the annual rainy season weakened, tourists flocked back to the Southeast Asian country, which had a remarkable success, and the coronavirus itself eradicated and then nearly wiped it out.

You floated with the Phuket model – an opportunity to visit Phuket and complete your mandatory quarantine in a luxury hotel with walks along the almost deserted beaches. But Phuket’s locals didn’t like the idea. It was swum again just before the island’s annual Vegetarian Festival because it’s not dangerous to pierce yourself with sharp objects and wander the streets in large groups, but a few foreign tourists in hotel quarantine are.

Then they developed the STV – the tourist visa that the avid travelers of the world could use to pack their sunscreen for up to 270 days of Thai tourism.

There were promises of plane loads of tourists and even published flights and airlines. A few flights arrived, most of them didn’t.

Since the start of the STV, the Special Tourist Visa, with its long list of restrictions and requirements, has been circulated along with a revised tourist visa. On average since the end of October. More than 3 million people came to Thailand in October and November of the previous year. Even the government’s limit of 1,200 new arrivals per month was lightly tested.

The government had bought all the streamers and a nice new dress for the party, but no one came.

It was a devastating loss of face for the army generals and officials who ruled the country. But they had other worries at the time when the Thai youth literally outraged. Protests against the government, while modest, inconveniently called for democracy while the government tried to figure out how to attract tourists. They were also directed, for the first time, against the country’s revered monarchy and the man who currently sits on the Thai throne.

Suddenly it was high season, the annual rush of tourists from the end of November, but popular places like Phuket, Samui, Krabi, all other islands, even Chiang Mai, remained largely without tourists.

Meanwhile, the STV reveled in its own failure – another failed response to the restart of Thai tourism.

What went wrong?

Where was the eagerly awaited pent-up demand and where were people knocking on the doors of the world’s Thai embassies?

It was winter in Europe and the “snow birds” would surely be back to enjoy some Thai sunshine. But no.

The first problem was they didn’t get much in return. You would have the islands’ beaches all to yourself, you wouldn’t have to stand in line, the domestic airlines were still selling cheap fares to travel anywhere in the country.

But otherwise they didn’t have much to do. The tourism magnets were a shadow of their former selves. Walking Street, Bangla Road, tours and tour boats, all tourist restaurants. The hustle and bustle of the crowds was gone and more than 90% of the tourist business was closed.

Their employees, their families, their bank loans, their stocks and investments – all on hold and forced to find other means to make ends meet. According to Bloomberg News, 931 of the major official tourism companies have gone out of business. There would be thousands more smaller family businesses that were also pushed aside by the Thai government’s responses to the world pandemic.

The industry players wanted measures, changes and suggestions to bring the tourists back. For a country that depended on up to 20% for its GDP, the only thing they thought was getting the tourists and travelers back. 2019’s $ 60 billion tourism revenue had disappeared from the pockets of its employees.

But the government would not relax quarantine rules and maintain the restrictions and paperwork that have shut down even the harshest Thai ravellers.

An outbreak of clusters south of Bangkok and the nearby eastern coastal provinces since December 20 has not helped. In less than a month, the number of Covid-19 infections in Thailand has more than doubled. Originally, the recent outbreak was attributed to the illegal importation of Burmese migrant workers by greedy fishing companies who wanted cheap labor. Then it spread through illegal gambling halls to the eastern provinces – Rayong, Chan Buri, Trat and Chanthaburi. In both cases, the practices were things that local officials turned a blind eye to. The use of cheap, illegal migrant workers and illegal gambling were popular but “underground” activities. It was a rude awakening for Thai officials that the enemy was inside this time.

Street after street in Pattaya is deserted, shops are closed. Parts of Phuket’s Patong are a ghost town. The island’s ubiquitous tuk tuks, taxis and tourist carts are gone (where ?!). Most of Bangkok is back to normal, but there are few tourists replenishing retail stores or booking rooms at tens of thousands of hotels. The average occupancy rate was less than 30%, even for the brave hotels that opened their doors again – the bottom line is that they lose money.

On the other hand, if you live in Thailand, airfares remain cheap, hotels have lowered their prices, and for the first time many renters will be considering a discount. The Thai government has actively stimulated domestic tourism, but aside from the circulation of the local currency, the country’s tourism industry will remain on hold until the end of the pandemic. And as we’ve seen, that won’t be anytime soon.

The world’s travelers, now a much smaller group than the masses who fueled the world’s aviation industry over the past few decades, are not traveling to Thailand to face a 14-day quarantine. They go to the Maldives and Costa Rica and a handful of other resorts that exercise caution – some with greater success than others. Almost every survey shows that tourists, even business travelers, are not prepared to stare in a 20 to 30 square meter hotel room for 14 days. Many of the hotels that quickly registered as Alternative State Quarantine (ASQ) facilities have left the hotel, some of them are now closed.

There is really a lot at stake now for Thailand and its tourism industry. The government is refusing to shorten the quarantine period or shorten the long list of restrictions and formalities, despite demands. The country has now lost its glossy veneer as a “safe country to visit” and the annual high season will end in about a month.

Chinese New Year and the annual flood of Chinese visitors to Thailand? Will not take place in 2021, the Chinese year of the ox.

The other “elephant in the room” was the high value of the Thai baht against the currencies of some traditional feeder markets. While the Thai baht has been relatively steadfast, many of these currencies have depreciated against the THB. The perception was that Thailand was becoming too expensive to travel. Despite this often suppressed forecast of a tourism apocalypse, 2019 was still the biggest year in the history of tourism.

The only hope on the horizon is the vaccine or vaccines. The early global launch is just that, early. It will take 6-12 months to see if the hard work of the world’s medical and scientific communities will be the great savior.Surely a risk-averse Thailand will in the near future limit all tourism to vaccinated customers. Only and (as stated) they have to carry out the 14-day quarantine at least in the short to medium term. The same goes for the airlines in the world. Thailand’s tourism problems, especially in the hotspots Pattaya, Phuket, the islands, Chiang Mai and Bangkok, will therefore continue to have an effect in 2021.

The Thai economy contracted 6% in 2020, but some economists predict a positive turnaround to an improvement of 3.5-4.5% in 2021. Even the always optimistic Thai Tourism and Sports Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn says 10 million People will be arriving in 2021. The actual numbers will be well below this prediction, even in the best of circumstances. It is hard to imagine where the tourists would come from under current circumstances and a global depression.

In 2020 the buzzword in the tourism industry was “closure”. In 2021 it will be “Management”.

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