Pattaya City officials urge tourists to still visit Pattaya and Chonburi over New Year despite countdown being cancelled

Pattaya, Thailand-

Pattaya City officials, including Mayor Sonthaya Khunplume, are hoping thousands of tourists who booked hotel rooms over the New Year’s Weekend don’t completely cancel due to the highly anticipated New Year’s Countdown event in Pattaya cancelled out of precaution for the Covid-19 situation in Thailand.

The event was to feature some of the most famous artists in Thailand, including Bodyslam and Da Endorphine. However, due to a cluster of Covid-19 that has reached well over a thousand people that began at a shrimp market in Samut Sakhon, primarily in the migrant community, the event was axed much to the disappointment of many, including Pattaya City officials who had spent a significant amount of time planning the event.

Pattaya has been depending primarily on weekend events for months now to drive domestic tourism to the city with a lack of foreign tourists due to closed borders. The strategy has, for the most part, worked with weekends seeing strong hotel occupancy according to the Eastern Hotel Association (EHA). Recent events included the fireworks festival and music festival which saw thousands of visitors and gave support to many badly hit local business.

The EHA told the Pattaya News earlier this week that hotels had been at one hundred percent occupancy across Pattaya in anticipation of the New Year’s event but due to both the event being cancelled and the Covid-19 situation in the country hotel room cancellations had begun.

Pattaya City Mayor Sonthaya Khunplume stated that Pattaya was still very safe and all beaches, tourist attractions and the cities world famous bars and nightlife were still open. He did, however, remind tourists that Covid-19 precautions such as mask wearing, temperature checks and check-in at venues was required but encouraged tourists to still visit Pattaya over the holidays. The city has been engaged in regular checks on businesses and markets in the area to ensure safety and security.

Chonburi has recorded two cases of Covid-19 from the recent Samut Sakhon cluster, two fish vendors who went to the market in question for ingredients on December 2nd. Both men are asymptomatic and according to the Chonburi Disease Control committee their contacts were limited and all of them have tested negative for Covid-19 so far.