While countries continue to adapt to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it seems Thailand might be focusing on making quarantine a bit more…fun. Being locked up in a mid-range hotel for a fortnight isn’t for everyone (or, no one), and it seems the country’s Tourism Minister, Phipat Ratchakitprakarn, is sympathetic to this fact. He’s proposed a plan to allow foreign travellers to quarantine in some of the many golf resorts dotted across Thailand.
The best part: isolation-ers will be free to move around in the hotel area and play rounds of golf to fill up their time, as opposed to just being cramped up in their room the entire time. It however remains unclear how this will work with a COVID-safe plan in place, but nonetheless it’s a much better prospect than arriving on Thailand soil and being immediately shipped off to a quarantine hotel.
“We are discussing with the Public Health Ministry and the country’s coronavirus taskforce to offer hotel and golf quarantine for tourists with medical certificates”, Ratchakitprakarn told reporters during the recent announcement.
The plan, as reported by Reuters, was made to help give a boost to Thailand’s tourism sector, which unsurprisingly has suffered greatly over the past year. And while it may be exciting news for anyone looking to visit Thailand when flights open up, the plan is subject to the approval of the cabinet, notably in the middle of a “second wave” that’s been creeping across the country since December.
This concept will of course depend on how COVID progresses in the country across the following months. Thailand is still doing relatively well regardless, reporting around 10,547 COVID-19 infections and a low death count of 67. Currently there are several new daily cases, which is high compared to Australia, but may still be low enough to justify the Tourism Minister’s proposal.
