Thailand’s sports and tourism minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said that the country and Singapore are discussing forming a travel bubble. He added that Thailand is eyeing travel bubbles with ASEAN countries with low COVID cases like Vietnam and Laos.
Phiphat noted that Singapore has experience in establishing green lanes with countries in Asia and Oceania and Thailand is hoping to join that group. Meanwhile, sharing a land border with Vietnam and Laos makes it easier to form travel bubbles. The minister aims to begin travel bubbles in October.
Meanwhile, Mario Hardy, chief executive of the Pacific Asia Travel Association, thinks that Thailand and Vietnam could easily form a travel bubble since the two countries have handled containing the coronavirus well and keeping the rate of infection quite low.
However, Chinese and Russians – Thailand’s top source markets – are in no rush to holiday elsewhere due to the fear that they may contract mutated form of the coronavirus. While talks with the European nations bogged down due to successive waves of infection. Deals with India, as well, are halted as the nation records 80,000 cases daily.
Still, Thailand is keen to cash out from its travel industry by keeping the borders open with strict requirements and measures to keep the virus at bay. The tourism authority keeps coming up with new ways to lure international visitors such as shortened quarantine, golf and yacht quarantine, etc. However, it may not be long for numbers to go up as vaccination is underway in many countries.
Sources: Thaiger, Pattaya Mail
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