Destinations knownThai tourism hinges on vaccine roll-out, big-spending visitors

In Thailand, November normally heralds the end of the monsoon season and the beginning of Europe’s mass snowbird migration, as retirees fly east in search of warmer climes. In recent years, the country has also become a popular Christmas holiday destination, despite its Buddhist leanings, as families from Asia and beyond forgo a “traditional” festive celebration in favour of an encounter with Santa by the sea.

But not in 2020. Whereas the Land of Smiles welcomed 3.4 million tourists in November 2019, this year just 681 trickled in. Admittedly, they are high-value visitors on the Special Tourist Visa (STV) scheme, who will spend longer – and therefore, it is hoped, more – than the average pre-pandemic traveller would have in the country. But still, each STV arrival would have to drop a small fortune to match the millions of baht brought in by the masses of yesteryear.

And, any Christmas miracles notwithstanding, a full recovery for the Thai tourism industry, or at least a quick return to the pre-pandemic model, seems like a woefully distant prospect. In a recent speech, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha “spoke clearly that only when a vaccine is approved, produced, and implemented would the country open to substantial tourism”, reported news site The Thaiger, on November 29. “Given the current timelines and forecasts, this may not be likely until mid-2021 at the earliest.”

On November 27, the Bangkok Post reported that Thailand had signed an agreement with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to secure 26 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine – enough for 13 million people, as two shots are required per person. The vaccine is expected to be delivered in mid-2021, according to the Nikkei Asian Review.

To create herd immunity to Covid-19 through a mass vaccination programme, a paper published in medical journal The Lancet estimated that somewhere between 60 per cent and 72 per cent of the population would have to be immunised. The 26 million doses ordered for a population of 69 million people will fall far short of that.

So even a midyear reopening seems ambitious if Thailand is to remain vaccine-dependent. Or, as The Thaiger puts it, “the writing is on the wall that 2021, for the most part, will see a continued reliance on domestic travellers, and only in 2022 will there be a large-scale return in numbers of overseas visitors”. Tourism Authority Thailand’s (TAT) Yuthasak Supasorn agrees, telling the Bangkok Post that prospects for 2021 “remain opaque as there are many unpredictable factors” – political protests as well as the still raging pandemic among them.