The short answer is that no one knows. But there are some smart and informed people out there making some guesses, ranging from October to Lunar New Year 2021. On the very optimistic side, some experts are saying there could be Chinese tourists returning to Thailand as early as August 2020. Some of the factors given for the early projections are surveys (albeit very limited) in China asking people whether they want to travel and whether they want to travel to Thailand. Of the survey respondents the answers is a resounding yes. China is also one of the first countries to achieve containment of the virus, with new reported cases of Covid-19 mainly coming from Chinese returning from abroad not local transmission. Thailand too seems to be making progress towards containment with new cases of Covid-19 in the single digits on some days. These combined factors seem to be aligning in a way that could permit governments and airlines to loosen restrictions on international travel at some point in the not-too-distant future. Many hotel owners and hotel workers are hoping international tourists return as soon as safely possible because the Thai tourist industry is hurting. Thousands of people have been furloughed, put on unpaid leave or on reduced salaries. With properties closed, hotels are left without any revenue except for maybe food deliveries which covers very little.
While there is no consensus on when Chinese tourists will be permitted to travel to Thailand, there does seem to be a consensus that they will be among the first to return, whether that's in October or early 2021. What is certain is that when tourists begin returning to Thailand, competition among hotels will be fierce. Those hotels who use this time to prepare for the Chinese market will very likely be the hotels who end up with many of those bookings. At the moment we are working with hotel clients on WeChat, Fliggy, Dianping and yes, still Sina Weibo. For hotels who do not use any of these channels for reaching Chinese customers now is a good time to prepare to do so. Registration and setup on all of these platforms can take from a few weeks to over one month, depending on the sophistication of both the marketing strategy as well as the chosen agency.
We have been providing Chinese digital marketing for hotels since 2013 when we opened our first office outside of Thailand in Shanghai. We plan on using our years of experience to work with hotels during this pandemic storm to prepare them for better times ahead. Now is the time to prepare.
Sources: C9 Hotelworks, Bangkok Post, Phuket Tourism Association
