The acting head of the Chonburi Tourist Business Association told the Thai media that he will be visiting with Thailand’s tourism minister next week to discuss plans for “Pattaya Move On” – the latest buzzwords for the reopening of the resort to foreign tourism.
Targets for the plan are mostly Asian including golfers and families and involve only a sealed route in Bang Lamung and Sattahip districts.
It is hoped that up to 20,000 foreign tourists will visit each month from August 1st.
But Thanet Supharothatrangsi will be taking a stark message to Pipat Ratchakitprakan – get 900,000 doses of vaccine or the next tourist high season will be October 2022 not this year.
Thanet outlined his plan for the two Pattaya districts which will be broadly in line with the proposed Phuket Sandbox scheme due to start next month.
He said he hoped that between 10,000 and 20,000 foreign tourists will come from August 1st.
They will need to be in a “sealed area”, stay in Pattaya for 14 days before going elsewhere and possibly have to quarantine for the first three days at one Pattaya hotel after a negative test.
All tourists will have to have been vaccinated prior to arrival.
He said the Asian targets were Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. Target groups were students, people interested in fitness programs, golfers, families and retirees.
Long haul targets included the UK, Germany, Russia, Scandinavia and the Netherlands including many countries in the Eastern bloc where families and holidaymakers were being wooed.
But he noted that so far only 60,000 doses of vaccine had been administered in the area.
He said that 900,000 doses were needed by July to vaccinate 450,000 people.
If that is not done, he said, it could jeopardize this year’s high season that is set to begin from October 1st this year.
That would mean the next high season for Pattaya would not be until October 1st 2022.
With the vaccine rollout stalling in Thailand amid a whole host of supply and production problems that eventuality for Pattaya must be a very real consideration, notes Thaivisa.
