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19 Mar 2021

Econ Digest

Vaccine passport...hope for Thai and world tourism

คะแนนเฉลี่ย

        Governments in many countries have gradually vaccinated their people to build their immunity against COVID-19. According to data from Our World in Data, as of 15 March 2021, more than 359.4 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were administered in many countries around the world, which is equivalent to 4.7 doses per 100 people. Countries with the highest number of people vaccinated with all doses of COVID-19 according to the vaccination criteria, compared to the total population of the country, include Israel, Seychelles and Bahrain. Progress in COVID-19 vaccination has led to the idea of a Vaccine Passport, which would prove that the passport holder has received all COVID-19 vaccines as required. The vaccine passport is one of the tools to help screen entrants and reduce obstacles in international travel, with the aim of helping economic activities in the country's tourism sector to continue.

        Currently, some countries have made progress in adopting the vaccine passport systems. For example, Greece, Cyprus and Israel have made an agreement on the use of a vaccine passport, allowing vaccinated people to travel between the three countries. Travel between the three countries is expected to begin from 1 April 20211. France has trialed vaccine passports for travel within French territories (French Caribbean territories of Martinique and Guadeloupe) through the ICC AOK pass application. Meanwhile, China has launched a “Virus Passport” application to verify that its citizens have been vaccinated before traveling abroad.

        In addition, many other countries are preparing to adopt vaccine passports, especially the European Union, which is considering to jointly set standards for issuing vaccine passports, in the hope that the adoption of vaccine passports during the upcoming summer tourist season will help revive Europe's tourism economy. During the preparation process, each country also plans to adopt the vaccine passports and develop an application that people can download onto their mobile phones from an official website as evidence to carry with them when traveling. For example, Spain, where the tourism sector is highly reliant on international tourists, with international visitor revenue accounting for 12% to its GDP, plans to adopt vaccine passports from May 2021 while Danish and Swedish authorities are developing digital vaccine passports as well. In Asia, many countries plan to adopt vaccine passports, such as Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia (Australia plans to enter into an agreement with Singapore on the adoption of vaccine passports). In addition, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) is developing a Travel Pass application to honestly provide credentials for passengers who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 to airlines and the authorities of the destination countries.

        Thailand is also in the process of preparing to adopt vaccine passports. The National Communicable Diseases Committee (NCDC) has approved a reduction in the number of quarantine days for foreign visitors entering Thailand. For foreign visitors who have a COVID-19 vaccination certificate issued at least 14 days or not more than 3 months before departure and a COVID-19-free certificate issued within the last 72 hours before departure, the number of quarantine days shall be shortened to 7 days if they are tested negative for COVID-19 upon arrival in Thailand. However, those who arrive from Africa will still be quarantined for 14 days. For foreign visitors who do not have a COVID-19 vaccination certificate and only have a COVID-19-free certificate issued within the last 72 hours before departure, the number of quarantine days shall be reduced to 10 days. However, this approach is still pending submission to the committee of Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) and is expected to be implemented from 1 April 2021 onwards. In the future, if the Thai government is able to vaccinate the population against COVID-19 as planned, the prevention and control measures may be further relaxed without the need for quarantine, beginning from 1 October 2021.

        This approach is a good start for the direction of Thailand's tourism industry. However, international travel in the early stage is still somewhat limited due to restrictions on quarantine, so the initial focus shall be on long-stay tourist markets, such as Europe, the Middle East and Oceania like Australia, while paying more attention to Asian tourists in the next stage. Of course, more and more countries will adopt vaccine passport systems in the future as it has been developed to meet an international standard. Therefore, in addition to controlling COVID-19 and vaccinating as planned, government agencies and the private sector must start conducting proactive planning for countries that adopt vaccine passports.

        In summary, KResearch views that if the authorities’ measures can be implemented as planned and there is no new outbreak of COVID-19 to hinder Thailand’s reopening plan, the number of international tourist arrivals to Thailand is expected to reach 2 million in 2021.

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