A look at the effects of COVID on Thailand’s tourism industry.
By: Saoirse 7.2, Wannagon 8.2
A picture of the Pattaya City sign
In a normal year, Holiday Inn's occupancy would be up to around 85% on average, and aside from being closed in April, May, and June of 2020, their lowest occupancy in the last 18 months was about 7%. As a country, Thailand heavily relies on international tourism. This accounts for up to 65% of every international currency spent in the country.
"The impact was almost immediate," stated Kate Gerits, general manager of Holiday Inn Pattaya, in regards to the COVID-19's effect on the hotel.
In January 2020, their occupancy was still considered normal at 88%, but later in February 2020, Holiday Inn started to notice the impact as it dropped down to 63%. They later closed the Hotel in April, regarding the drop in occupancy. During this time, there was a mass workforce reduction, with around 200 employees being forced to drop out of their jobs. Others within the hotel had also experienced deductions in their salary.
The coronavirus has severely affected shops and malls with something called low profit. It has been worse on little shops on the side of the road that are relying on the traffic and people traveling around the country. This year, unemployment rates rose another 1%. Many small shops have even had to close due to small investments, or income rates. The bigger shops like malls have also suffered a little bit, but not as much. They have also had to close but now they are reopening due to the government lowering restrictions. As the government decided to release the restriction as of September 1st, tourism in Thailand has gotten better, and more shops are making better income. Though it isn’t significant, we can definitely see some changes.
Regarding the current situation in Thailand, the government has noticed that the strict lockdown measures were interfering with the country’s economic growth. As mentioned before, Thailand heavily relies on international tourism; closing the country’s borders would result in more poverty, higher unemployment rates, less money going in and out of the country, and more. COVID cases in August and throughout September averaged about 10,000 people per day. Since the government began vaccinating people from the start of October of 2021, 42% of Thailand's population have at least received one dose, whilst 22% are fully vaccinated.
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