Planning spending your winter holidays in Thailand Just hold that thought. The Thai government is in no hurry to open its borders for leisure travel or foreign tourists any time soon, not before 2021.
Although Thailand's tourism industry continues to suffer due to COVID-19 outbreak, the prospect of leisure travel is quite bleak, and is not likely to happen this year. Even the Chinese New Year celebrations of February seem to have bleak prospects this time.
The country, however, has opened its borders for foreigners with work permits, residency or families. The Deputy Governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, Chattan Kunjara Na Ayudhya, said in a webinar recently that as of now, no decision on a timeline has been taken regarding reopening the country to inbound or outbound leisure travellers.
There were initial plans of opening travel bubbles and allowing tourists from low-risk countries, but that has been withheld due to the rising number of cases in some of the countries from where tourists come, such as Australia, India, Japan, Vietnam and others.
Thailand's tourism industry, which contributes almost 20% to Thailand&rsquos GDP and has more than four million workers, has been severely affected by the pandemic. But the government doesn&rsquot want to risk opening up borders for tourists lest the country should get a new wave.