Anutin Charnvirakul, Minister of Public Health, has dismissed the necessity for specific entry procedures for Chinese tourists, noting that a sudden flood of Chinese visitors is expected to be gradual.
Anutin noted that as long as the Chinese government imposes travel restrictions, including COVID-19 RT-PCR tests for both inbound and outgoing visitors, all Chinese tourists arriving in Thailand will have been tested and cleared of COVID infection.
Minister Anutin, on the other hand, stated that officials from the Department of Disease Control, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, the Ministry of Transport, and the Tourism Authority of Thailand have met on a daily basis to discuss appropriate tourism and health measures in preparation for an influx of international tourists.
According to Anutin, the vast majority of Chinese visitors have received at least three doses of the COVID-19 vaccination or have produced COVID-19-specific antibodies. This set of tourists would merely be obliged to follow the same rules as everyone else, such as acquiring health insurance.
Thailand officials have also proposed offering AstraZeneca vaccinations to Chinese visitors for a modest cost and on a voluntary manner.
Yuthasak Supasorn, Governor of Thailand’s Tourism Authority, stated this week that he expects Chinese visitors to begin coming on January 5 and that roughly 300,000 will arrive in the first quarter of next year, benefiting the tourism business during the low season. The authority has boosted its arrival target for the coming year from 20 million to 25 million, while tourist income is expected to stay stable at 2.4 trillion baht.
