Tourism/ Chinese visitors

Chatrudee Theparat

The Thai government has required Chinese travelers to Thailand to purchase health insurance in order to cover cost from Covid-19 infection while in the country.

China will reopen its border on coming 8 January. It is concerned to have the big number of Chinese tourists coming Thailand and bring a surge in Covid cases here.

Such a requirement was agreed yesterday by the four agencies - the Public Health, Transport, Tourism and Spots Ministry and Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) after the meeting was chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and the Public Health Minister Anuthin Charnvirakul. Clearly, the health insurance will help cover the potential cost of treatment from Covid infection during Chinese travelling here.

Deputy Prime Minister and the Public Health Minister Anuthin Charnvirakul

The Chinese government requires each traveler to have a medical certificate showing a negative Covid-19 test result before leaving and conducting real time polymerase chain reaction (RT PCR) test before arriving.

“Only a negative Covid-19 test result can fly back while infections are required to take treatment,” Anuthin said.

He said the Thai government remains to implement the same standard of Covid measures towards tourists as other countries has done and insists that Thailand has taken care of arrivals from countries equally.

The government will seek collaboration from hotels to conduct RT-PCR test because the testing process will take 7-8 hours while related agencies will establish an ad-hoc committee to monitor the operation.

Each state agencies will play its clear role to welcome the influx of Chinese arrivals. Transport Minister Saksiam Chidchob will inspect for readiness at Suvarnabhumi airport this January 12. The ministry will also be in charge of disembarkation via channels from air, land and marine. TAT will ask for cooperation from related agencies such as SHA Plus standard to make sure the services in place.

Tourism and Spots Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said after China announced to re-open its border, its first flight to Thailand will be seen in 9 January with 200 passengers.

He said the government will manage flights carefully from China to major tourism provinces like Phuket, Chiang Mai and northeastern provinces. In addition, the Kunming- Hat Yai route is under talks. He expected Chinese visitors would return to normal as the year 2019 during the low season between April to June this year.

TAT projected there are around 300,000 Chinese arrivals to Thailand in the first quarter this year, including 60,000 in January, 90,000 in February and up to 150,000 in March, putting the total number to five million by the end of this year.