Relief in sight to enter Thailand.
The country will exempt international travelers from presenting a negative Covid-19 test before boarding a plane bound for the country, the government announced on Friday.
From April 1, the requirement to show a negative test within 72 hours will be waived and vaccinated visitors will simply be tested upon arrival in Thailand, said Taweesin Visanuyothin, spokesperson for the Covid-19 task force. 19 of the kingdom.
Travel restrictions kept Thailand largely Covid-proof in the early stages of the pandemic, but they plunged a tourism industry crucial to the country's economy into crisis.
Thailand is currently recording around 25,000 new cases a day as the Omicron variant spreads across the country, but authorities hope that number will decline so that it can move into a "post-pandemic" phase from July.
Tourism at half mast since the pandemic
Seeking to recover from its worst economic performance since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Thailand has gradually eased travel restrictions over the past nine months.
But hotels, restaurants and all players in tourism, a sector which represents 20% of the country's GDP, have begged the government to go further and faster to encourage visitors to return to the kingdom's seaside resorts.
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Thailand: the ecosystem of the Phi Phi Islands is reborn thanks to the pandemic
Before the pandemic, the country was one of the most visited in the world with nearly 40 million arrivals in 2019. The Ministry of Tourism hopes to welcome five million visitors this year.
