Over 90,000 apply to enter Thailand in 6 days since reopening

Over 90,000 foreign visitors applied for the “Thailand Pass” to enter the country between November 1^st and yesterday (Saturday). Of these, 33,788 applications have been approved, Government Spokesman Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana said on Sunday.

Since November 1^st, when Thailand reopened the country to foreign arrivals, 16,595 have entered Thailand without the need for quarantine, under the “test and go” program, the “sandbox” schemes in specific provinces and under the alternative quarantine program. Most of them have arrived from the US, Germany, the UK, Japan and Switzerland.

Thanakorn said about 30,000 foreign visitors are expected to enter Thailand in November and in December. This is about 10% of about three million who visited Thailand monthly in 2019.

For the whole of 2021, he said that an estimated 700,000 tourists will have arrived in Thailand, including over 65,000 who visited Thailand under the “Phuket sandbox” scheme since July 1^st.

Between July and next February, bookings at hotels connected with the alternative quarantine program total 951,710 nights.

The government spokesman also warned foreign visitors about a fake website, www.thailandpass.org, which claims to allow visitors to register for the “Thailand Pass”, a new system for vaccinated visitors to Thailand, which will replace the Certificate of Entry (COE) system.

To apply for a “Thailand Pass”, he recommended that visitors go to https://tp.consular.go.th, which has been open for registration since November 1^st.

Thanakorn also said that Thai people had responded enthusiastically to the easing of lockdown restrictions, since November 1^st, by subscribing to the Phase 3 “Rao Tiew Duay Gan” (We Tour Together) and “Tour Tiew Thai” (Tour Thailand) programs.

More than 8.9 million Thais have subscribed to the Rao Tiew Duay Gan program for all three phases, raking in an estimated 3.2 billion baht in hotel revenues.

Thanakorn said he is optimistic that the tourism business will become more active during the rest of the year, which will help boost the struggling economy.