catocony

For what it's worth, Dubai is way out of the way from the West Coast to either Thailand or South Africa.

azepine00

Yes but in order to handle tens of thousands athletes and staff and media and delegations Japan will have to implement some practical covid control measures for all those visiting folks and assuming no spikes afterwards those measures should in theory help to open tourism later in time for OP travel...

lobo411

The elites own TAT: Tourism Authority of Thailand. That's why Thailand will be open.

scubadu

By that logic then why was it ever closed? Or why wasn't it opened back up 6 months ago?

Way too many armchair quarterbacks in these threads...

Regards

invisible

How much are you willing to bet to back your statement?

lobo411

I have tickets and hotels booked for Phuket, Bangkok, Singapore, and Tokyo in Jan 2022.

Thailand was originally closed because nobody knew what covid was, or what it was capable of in March 2020. It could have been the world-ender for all people knew. And there were no proven effective treatments for covid. There were no vaccines. There was only question marks.

And in that climate of fear, it made sense to close Thailand. It was also inevitable that Thailand would be closed, because even if Thailand chose to stay open, the Chinese and Western tourists that are the nation's lifeblood couldn't come anyway. Their governments wouldn't allow it. Thailand made a decision to close, but they weren't making their decisions in a vacuum. It takes two governments for international tourism to happen.

Why didn't they reopen 6 months ago? Well, again...6 months ago there weren't vaccines. There weren't vaccinated travelers. Nobody in his right mind would have believed 6 months ago that we'd have vaccines with 95% efficacy. Nobody in his right mind would have believed 6 months ago that the virus would mutate (the UK strain), and one of the vaccines we had developed to target the Wuhan strain--Novavax--would also be 89% effective against the mutant strain, and 70% effective against the South African strain (new data from Novavax proves the latter).

And finally, the difference between March 2020 and September 2021 is that a country can only stay closed for so long. It's like civilians hiding from artillery during a war. They want to stay in the basement, where it's safe, forever. But you can only stay down there for so long. Eventually, you gotta come out to get food, to get water, etc.... All nations are in the same boat. No matter what happens, they can only stay closed for so long.

invisible

Non-refundable?

I understand your logical reasoning why countries are closed and should be opened now/soon, but I also observed that like ordinary human behavior, behaviors of governments were neither rational nor logical.

Why don’t you check in Thailand forum what people who currently and during whole pandemic lived there what they think in terms of opening/closing. Might give you some additional piece of information.

As far as Singapore goes, in the local telegram group of people who are miles/points collectors and has >10k people in it, vast majority of them do not think that unrestricted travel to/from Singapore will happen until end of 2022.

lobo411

Award tickets which are either refundable or offer free date changes. The hotels I booked are free cancellation-pay later.

I have plenty of Thai friends I've known for 20 years (Thai nationals living in Phuket and Bangkok) so have the benefit of their perspective. I understand that the government of Thailand is focusing vaccination efforts on Phuket so that the locals are all sufficiently vaccinated to allow in foreign tourists.

As for Singapore...there's absolutely no chance they'll be closed thru Jan 2023. Sinapore Airlines is nearly bankrupt as it is, for one thing. And your wording is very specific: unrestricted travel. Unrestricted as in just anyone can enter the country. I expect Singapore will 100% require vaccination to enter, which is restricted travel. Anyway, Singapore is leading the drive for vaccination passports, and they already allow vaccinated passengers from Malaysia to enter.

invisible

As long as Temasek is not bankrupt, I would not be concerned for any company which has their or Singapore government backing which pretty much has unlimited funds from the local perspective.

P.S. Just watching outside of my window at Pasir Panjang port and I see that all the big scale infrastructure projects are going in full speed, excluding projects related to tourism arrivals, like Changi T5. Wonder why....

invisible

Could you post the official statement with URL of the above?

lobo411

Ever heard of "countercyclical fiscal policy?"


https://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/u.../ne2420-201223

https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/...pted-singapore

https://www.hindustantimes.com/lifes...851418789.html

invisible

Aha, I got what I was expecting - links that Singapore is trialing digital vaccination and test certificates.

But you wrote that vaccinated people from Malaysia are admitted into Singapore. Which is factually incorrect.

For admittance and quarantine requirements, next time I’d suggest consult following two documents on ICA site:

https://safetravel.ica.gov.sg/files/...ab-summary.pdf
https://safetravel.ica.gov.sg/health/faq


P.S. I understand one can misread what is written ‘somewhere over Internet’, but for anything related to Covid and Singapore policies one should first read what is published on a sites which have domain ending with .gov.sg.

For people here in Singapore publishing something related to Singapore government which is factually incorrect, may end up for them with real jail time for spreading fake news. This is not a joke.

lobo411

Neither is smuggling vaccine.

invisible

Anything openly declared is not smuggling.

Once you are in Singapore, send me a PM, I can show you around and would be glad to get know how fiscal policies are applied to pandemic conditions.

rxgeek

I plan a similar trip in January. Maybe we will cross paths. I'm fully vaxxed. Are there any restrictions going from Bangkok-Phuket-Bangkok-USA (probably transiting in NRT on the way back)?