Thailand’s coronavirus lockdown has eased but tourism industry must rely on local travellers for now

For 2020, the Thai government expects the number of international visitors to plummet 68 per cent from last year to 12.7 million

In Vietnam, which has also been hit hard by restrictions, the government has launched a campaign to persuade citizens to travel and support the industry

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Tourists disembark a ferry at Koh Larn island on the first day of reopening in Pattaya in Thailand. Photo: EPA

Published: 10:35am, 4 Jun 2020Updated: 7:38pm, 4 Jun 2020

With cash flow drying up at Thailand’s popular beach resort of Phuket, hotels are racing to restart tourism – starting with local travellers.

“If nothing changes in the next three months, we won’t be able to afford paying for staff,” said Angkana Tanetvisetkul, president of the Kata Karon Business Association, which represents more than 40 locally owned hotels in Phuket.

Across Southeast Asia – one of the most tourism-reliant regions in the world – hotels and travel businesses are slowly kicking into gear after countries like Thailand and Vietnam successfully flattened their virus infection curves and began easing lockdown restrictions.

While international leisure travel is still a long way off, hotels and airlines are slashing rates to lure locals. Even in countries where infection rates are still a worry, like Indonesia and Singapore, governments are hoping to reopen tourist hotspots like Bali and restart business travel to China and elsewhere.

In Hanoi’s usually bustling Old Quarter, hotels are scrambling to welcome domestic visitors, and beachgoers are sporadically returning to Vietnamese resort towns like Da Nang.

Do Tran Phuong, operating manager of Hanoi-based Mytravel Vietnam, says it costs as little as 2.7 million dong (US$116) for local tourists to snag air tickets and two nights’ beachside hotel stay with the sort of deals airlines and hotels are offering. That’s a saving of more than 70 per cent from before the pandemic.

“That will give almost no profit, but just to prompt people to travel and resume their travelling sense again,” he said. “The population of over 90 million people is actually a very big potential market for us, especially when the virus epidemic is still going on in other countries.”