Tourism People traveling to Thailand should now be careful – A careless person can be hospitalized for up to ten days, even if it is not painful

Bangkok, Thailand

Thailand opens again on Tuesday. The latest regulations were announced at the last minute, Thai Monday.

On Tuesday, the country will introduce the Test & Go system, which it has already shelved once, to replace quarantine. You can log in to the system from Tuesday from midnight.

The system is new, according to many constituent place. Previously, a visitor had to book one night in advance in an officially defined quarantine hotel SHA Extra Plus. The hotel package included a transfer from the airport to the hotel and a pcr test either at the hotel or in the hospital on the way to the hotel.

Now, in addition to this, a second hotel reservation is also required in the same defined hotel on the fifth day after entry, with corona tests. In both cases, the traveler will not be able to enter the hotel until the test has been shown to be negative, ie the traveler is defined as healthy.

In practice, therefore, two one-day hotel quarantines every five days await visitors to Thailand. Between these two short quarantines, you can stay and move anywhere in Thailand.

The first once Thailand introduced the Test & Go system in early November. At the same time, borders opened to near-normal entry without long quarantine.

However, the system was only operational until 22 December, as Thailand tightened its entry regulations once the coronavirus self-variant spreaded worldwide.

On Christmas Eve, the Test & Go system was closed, but entry permits already issued were still valid. New ones could no longer be registered.

Now on Tuesday, registration is up again.

Test & Go system the essence is that a person who has been vaccinated and tested in their country of origin will go to Thailand as soon as they arrive for a corona test organized by their hotel and wait for the result in a quarantine hotel they have booked for one night.

The test result for some has come in the hours, for some the morning after the test. Once the test is confirmed to be negative, the traveler is allowed to leave the hotel.

Thailand requires a Thailand Passport from all entrants. It is practically a QR code with all the information about the traveler.

The Thailand Pass is available for entry through the Test & Go system as well as the Sandbox system. The difference between these systems is that a Sandbox tourist must stay a week in a certified hotel.

Unlike previous quarantine systems, a Test & Go tourist does not have to be in their room all the time and can spend days outside the hotel.

Sandbox has been used in a few tourist areas, mainly in Phuket.

Samui, another popular tourist island, has had the Samui Plus system. The Sandbox in Phuket has had to be flown directly and a direct exchange sealed to Sam via Bangkok. Since the beginning of February, there are also sandbox sites in Chon Buri County, such as Pattaya.

Tourists who arrived in the country last autumn after the beginning of November received a self-test package with the first test, and they were to take the second test a week after their arrival on their own initiative.

Now another test is supervised and mandatory. Both tests must be booked and paid for before traveling and applying for a Thailand Passport.

Significant and a useful difference for the passenger to the previous Test and Go system is that the passenger can book the first night at a hotel within a five-hour drive of Bangkok’s main airport, Suvarnabhum.

The change will make it possible to go directly from the airport to Hua Hin, for example, which is one of Finland’s favorite destinations.

Previously, the Test and Go Hotel had to be booked in either Bangkok or Chon Buri County, Pattaya, for example, as accommodation could not be more than two hours from the airport at the time.

Bangkok the main airport, Suvarnabhumi, is on the opposite side of the Bangkok metropolis from Hua Hin, and it is easy to drive an hour and a half through the metropolitan area alone. Pattaya, on the other hand, is on the Suvarnabhumi side of Bangkok, east of the Gulf of Siam, and is just over an hour’s drive from the airport.

Through the Test and Go system, it was previously only possible to enter the country through Bangkok.

“Now it works practically anywhere there is a suitable hotel five hours away from the airport,” he says Juha-Matti Vuorinen, which organizes Nordic Villa Hua Hin ‘s Nordic customers in Hua Hin.

Not everything was quite clear the day before the system was opened. In addition to Bangkok, there are Test and Go-eligible hotels in Hua Hin, Pattaya, Phuket and Samui. Test and Go packages could not be booked at hotels in Hua Hin until Monday because the administration had not designated test sites in the area.

Test sites were announced on Monday and packages are on sale.

“It simply came to our notice then. It’s like ram meat now, ”Vuorinen said on Monday afternoon.

“It just went as it was. One can go from the airport to Bangkok, Hua Hin or Pattaya. If you think of coming to Hua Hin, the car will drive straight to the test. After that, drive to the hotel to wait, and when the negative result comes, free to go. ”

Vuorinen says that hotels in the Hua Hin area were upset last week about the delay in the information.

“All the licenses and systems were clear before. Only information about the tests was missing. ”

Fifth a day hotel order is tricky mainly for those who own an apartment in Thailand or rent an apartment for a longer period of time.

“For a normal tourist, it has little to no effect. But for those who have an apartment in Thailand, for example, it’s a little funny to have to come to the hotel for another night. Or for people who come on holiday and live in a villa or elsewhere for longer. ”

Anyone entering Thailand must obtain an entry permit. which is called Thailand Pass. It is requested online. For the Test and Go, applying for a Thailand Passport requires paid hotel reservations with tests.

In addition, the traveler must enter a picture of the passport information page, vaccine certificates, insurance covering at least $ 50,000, and a flight ticket. It is good to make sure that the words covid and the amount of dollars are mentioned on the insurance certificate. Insurance companies are aware of the requirements in Thailand and will provide factual certificates upon request at the latest.

If the passenger has already suffered from covid-19 disease, it is a good idea to have a certificate of illness printed from, for example, a self-population. It allows access to both the flight and the ground. The coronavirus can appear on a pcr test for weeks or even months.

If the test result is positive in Finland, you will not be able to fly to Thailand without a certificate of coronary heart disease.

If either of the tourist’s income tests in Thailand is positive and there is no evidence of coronary heart disease, there is a ten-day non-voluntary hospital stay ahead.

Exposure can also mean that a person is subjected to hotel quarantine, for example. It is a good idea to find out in advance with the insurance company what the insurance will cover.

This information applies to people who have received vaccines. In the absence of vaccines, the only option to enter Thailand is a 14-day quarantine in a hotel room.