Thailand U-turns on Covid vaccination rule for visitors

THAILAND on Monday (Jan 9) rescinded a policy requiring visitors to show proof of Covid-19 vaccination, its health minister Anutin Charnvirakul said, citing sufficient immunisation levels in China and globally.

The policy had been announced during the weekend.

The minister said that requiring visitors to show evidence of vaccination was inconvenient, and a panel of experts had resolved that it was unnecessary as enough vaccinations had been administered globally.

He said that unvaccinated visitors would also be granted entry without restrictions.

The country’s aviation authority had on Saturday announced the restrictions, effective from Monday, ahead of an expected deluge of visitors from China, where Covid-19 cases have surged.

“Showing proof of vaccination would be cumbersome and inconvenient, and so the group’s decision is that it is unnecessary,” Anutin told reporters.

The first flight of Chinese visitors since the start of the pandemic arrived in Thailand on Monday. The flight was carrying an initial group of an expected 3,465 passengers on the first day, he said.

One of Asia’s most popular travel destinations, Thailand is enjoying an influx of tourists during its first peak season since the removal last year of tight entry restrictions.

In November, it recorded 1.8 million visitors, quadruple the number received for the whole of last year, when flights and foreign arrivals were limited.

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Anutin said that Thailand was now expecting seven to 10 million Chinese visitors, compared to an earlier estimate of five million.

“This is a good sign for Thailand’s tourism sector... the country’s economy will recover rapidly, after we’ve been devastated by Covid for the last three years,” he pointed out.

Thailand’s tourism authority is expecting arrival numbers for last year to have exceeded 11.5 million. This is just over a quarter of the record of nearly 40 million travellers in pre-pandemic 2019, who spent about 1.9 trillion baht (S$76 billion).

For foreigners whose next destination is a country requiring a negative pre-entry Covid-19 test, Thailand will still require them to show that they have health insurance covering treatment for the disease, Anutin said. REUTERS