24 Aug, 2021
TAT deputy governor for Marketing Communication Thanet Petchsuwan revealed to the press that Chiang Mai will become the first inland province to be pushed under the TAT’s reopening country project, following several southern island openings in Phuket, Samui, and others in the “7+7” model.
Pattaya and Chonburi, unfortunately, is currently delayed due to concerns about the number of Covid-19 cases and proximity to Bangkok. Hua Hin may proceed, but negotiations are still taking place.
According to the deputy governor, the “Bubble & Seal” plan in Chiang Mai is initially scheduled to be officially implemented on October 1st under the title “Charming Chiang Mai”. Travel agencies or Destination Management Companies (DMC) will play an important role in driving domestic tourism and taking care of tourists during their stay in the designated areas.
Similar to the Phuket Sandbox and Samui Plus Model, the same health preventive measures and requirements must be strictly conducted upon arrivals, such as tourists must be fully vaccinated 14 days prior to travel, must provide health insurance, and Covid-19 insurance with a minimum of USD 100,000, etc. RT-PCR testing must be done three times during their 14-day stay before being allowed to travel elsewhere in the designated areas. More details would be listed as soon as the program became official.
Initially, travel agencies would introduce a variety of travel packages to cover all target groups such as a General Program, Family Program, Golf Program, Health & Wellness Program, Sports Program, Medical Program, Meeting Program, etc.
Thanet stated: “The main target group for the project would be tourists from Asia, including China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Indonesia, and from USA and Canada.”
A major difference between the Chiang Mai plan and the Phuket plan is Chiang Mai plans to target actual tourists and not returning ex-pats or Thai nationals avoiding a hotel quarantine that has gone to Phuket.
The target number of tourists who will enter the “Charming Chiang Mai” project has not yet been officially estimated. Roughly, it would be about 90 people per day traveling with one flight per day, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand.
“However, there are two factors to be considered whether the plan can proceed as scheduled; the vaccination distributions for entrepreneurs and local residents in the four districts and the number of new infections in Thailand. Both would directly affect the confidence of foreign tourists,” Thanet concluded.
Prior to this, the TAT has officially postponed the plan to open Pattaya City to foreign vaccinated tourists on September 1st with no firm future date set as the province, especially in Banglamung/Pattaya area, has more than a thousand cases of Covid-19 Coronavirus per day have taken place in the past few months.
