Coronavirus: Thailand welcomes 39 Chinese tourists; New Zealand sees two community cases

The Chinese travellers arrived in Bangkok on a ‘Special Tourist Visa’ programme aimed at restoring the battered tourism sector

New Zealand is seeing an outbreak among a group of foreign fishermen; a fast and cheap paper-based Covid-19 test will soon be available in India

Reading Time:6 minutes

Chinese tourists from Shanghai arrive at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport on a special visa, as Thailand starts gradually reopening to foreign visitors. Photo: AP

Published: 1:40pm, 21 Oct 2020Updated: 3:20pm, 21 Oct 2020

Thailand’s tourist industry has taken a modest step toward reviving its coronavirus-battered fortunes by welcoming 39 visitors who flew in from Shanghai, the first such arrivals since regular travellers were banned almost seven months ago.

The visitors who arrived at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport are pioneers in a “Special Tourist Visa” programme devised by Thai authorities to restore step by step a sector of the economy that welcomed almost 40 million foreign visitors last year and by some estimates accounts for more than 10 per cent of the country’s GDP.

China was a natural choice for restarting tourism. Thailand was one of the top overseas destinations for Chinese tourists in 2019, when they accounted for by far the largest number of visitors to Thailand by nationality. Just as crucial is that China has largely contained the virus domestically, in sharp contrast to other countries.

Thailand has had only a handful of domestic cases since June, and China’s few local outbreaks have dissipated quickly after authorities took steps such as testing entire cities and quarantining communities with potential exposure.

Thailand’s newest visitors cannot freely traipse around the country, however. Under the programme approved by the Thai cabinet in September, foreign tourists who commit to a stay of at least 30 days are issued 90-day visas that can be renewed twice.

After arriving, they must stay in government-approved quarantine at a hotel or hospital for 14 days and prove they have long-term accommodation. They must have special insurance policies, undergo pre-departure testing for the virus and download an official coronavirus-tracking application for use during their stay.