All new tourists will be imposed this quarantine. Barely emerging from a strong wave of the Delta variant and with 64 imported cases of Omicron on its territory, this crisis measure had to be taken to control the widespread.
Thailand’s Prime Minister, Prayut Chan-O’Cha, has announced the temporary suspension of the issuance of the Thailand Pass and zero exemptions from quarantine from 22 December until the next sanitary re-evaluation on 04 January. For both vaccinated and unvaccinated tourists , “they will be allowed to enter the country under the desired ‘Test & Go’, ‘Sandbox’, State quarantine and standard procedures“, said Tanakorn Wangboonkongchana, the government’s spokesman. Thus, vaccinated travellers, even those from the 63 countries eligible for the Test & Go programme, will no longer be able to enter Thailand without accepting this quarantine of 10 days in a hotel. Nevertheless, the Phuket Sandbox programme, for vaccinated travellers, allows free movement on the island for 7 days before being able to travel in the rest of the country.
Exempted
This measure will not apply to those who already hold an approved Thailand Pass. It also concerns the 110,000 confirmed international travellers and 90,000 already registered before this decision. “They will get into the country under enhanced measures, including a second PCR test and the government will cover the cost of this additional test“, said Tanakorn Wangboonkongchana.
Reopened after 18 months in November after being impacted by the pandemic, Thailand has known its worst economic situation and had expected to get close to its 2019 success with 40 million tourists. This situation affects the tourism sector for sure, but also French and Asian operators.
