Thailand planning ‘fun’ quarantine hotels with live music and virtual yoga
Thailand is hoping to lure tourist back to its popular beaches and landmarks by making the essential two weeks quarantine as fun as possible.
Visitors to the south-east Asian country will need to go into isolation for two weeks – but tourism chiefs are encouraging hotels and resorts to make it more than sitting in a room watching TV.
Srisuda Wanapinyosak, tourism authority deputy governor for Europe, says they are hoping that as the UK gets colder, sunseekers will return to Thailand, despite a raft of hoops that need to be jumped through.
As well as travellers being forced into two weeks quarantine, they will also need to provide a negative Covid-19 test result, and travel to the country on a chartered flight.
But once you have arrived Ms Wanapinyosak is hoping that the two weeks quarantine will not mean you are not stuck inside staring at four walls.
“What we’re trying to do is to make the 14-day quarantine more interesting and fun than just watching Netflix,” she said.
She said officials are developing plans for online recreational activities such as virtual yoga, meditation and cooking classes for the isolation period.
And she is asking approved quarantine hotels to arrange offline activities such as live music shows guests can enjoy from their rooms.
And once their two weeks is up, travellers will be free to explore the country.
Travellers will still need to get a Special Tourist Visa before they arrive which would be valid for up to nine months.
Although Thailand Tourist Authority governor Yuthasak Supasorn added that they are likely to take applications from low risk countries such as those in Scandinavia first.
As of today, Thailand has seen just 59 deaths from coronavirus and a total of 3,511 have tested positive for coronavirus.
Yesterday that number of positive cases increased by five, and were in relation to four foreign visitors and one Thai national returning from Switzerland. All five remain in government quarantine.
The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development added Thailand to the list of countries where self-isolation on return to the UK is not required as of 4am on Saturday, September 19.
Although it warns: “This advice is being kept under constant review. Travel disruption is still possible and national control measures may be brought in with little notice.”
