Pattaya-
Adding to a growing number of voices across Thailand asking for Test and Go to “Go away” prominent Pattaya tourism industry agree that the program must be further eased or removed to boost tourism in Thailand and Pattaya.
According to Mr. Provt Saekoo, President of the Eastern Thai Hotels Association, who also believes that allowing resumption of regular major festivals and events, especially Songkran, is needed to boost tourism as we wrote about here, Test and Go must be eased, potentially to just an ATK test on arrival instead of a costly PCR and mandated hotel stay, to begin to really see an impact on tourism from overseas.
Mr. Saekoo, who commented on behalf of dozens of major local hotel and business owners, was discussing the situation just days after dozens of national business and tourism leaders told the Thai Government Thailand Pass and Test and Go needed to immediately be canceled.
Saekoo said that the recent decision to lift the previously compulsory Day 5 PCR Test and mandated hotel stay while waiting for results was a step in the right direction but hotel operators were seeing little change in bookings and it was not a big enough move.
According to Saekoo, if the Thai government even eased Test and Go to an ATK (Rapid antigen) test on arrival and did not force visitors to stay at a mandated special certified hotel while waiting for results for a night this would also be an improvement, but would still deter many visitors due to fear of testing positive in Thailand and being made to quarantine. Saekoo hoped that by May the country could either ease the program for entry or, as other tourism leaders have called for, discard it entirely and replace it with a simple pre arrival test in their own country and proof of vaccination.
Saekoo did not comment on Thailand Pass, however most major tourism leaders are asking for the system to also be removed, especially to attract short-term market tourists from countries like India and Malaysia who often travel for only a few days from a few hours away and would not want to spend extensive time on pre-trip paperwork and approvals.
Nearly every single tourism, hospitality, business, and entertainment organization in Pattaya has also continued to urge the government to allow a full legal opening of Pattaya’s nightlife and entertainment industry, but the Thai government has continually stated that doing so could see “100,000” cases of Covid-19 a day and would potentially, even with 99.2 percent mild, overwhelm hospitals if cases grew to that level. Critics claim the closure is a “morale” closure implemented by individuals who dislike or do not support the industry, but the Thai government claims it is only about Covid-19. Bars have been legally closed nationwide since April of 2021, with the ability to reopen in a “grey area” as “restaurants” in the meantime.
