The Thai government is planning to offer long-term visas of up to 9 months for long-stay visitors to Thailand. The main target group will be Europeans senior citizens that want to spend winter in a warmer climate.
If you’re a European senior citizen that wants to come to Thailand for a long-term stay, then you could be in luck. As long as you’re willing to do a 14-day quarantine at a hotel in Phuket, you could be allowed in this winter.
The lack of tourists since the start of the pandemic has hit Thailand’s economy pretty badly, with many tourist related business already closed, and more likely to follow.
To try to alleviate this situation, the government is finalizing plans to allow certain groups of tourists to come this winter.
According to Boon Vanasin, chairman of Thonburi Healthcare Group Pcl, the nation’s third largest private hospital firm, the idea is to offer visas for up to 9 months.
To be eligible for this visa you’d need to do a 14-day quarantine in Phuket, which would involve multiple covid-19 tests. If free from covid you’d be allowed to leave Phuket after 3 weeks and travel elsewhere in Thailand.
Thailand has now gone 98 days without an local transmission of covid being report. So now could be a good time to start letting in tourists in smaller groups.
The low infection rate will also make it a safer place for Europeans to visit, as many other countries as still experiencing a high number of cases.
It is expected that around 50,000 European tourists could arrive this winter. Thai Airways has said it plans to operate at least two flight per months from countries such as Denmark, Sweden and the UK,
Once the details of the above scheme are finalized, we’re likely to find out further details of who exactly will be allowed to come. But as the target group is European senior citizen, I’d guess that maybe it would be aimed at people over 50, as is the case with the retirement visa.