Thailand is one of the top 10 most visited destinations in the world based on international tourist arrivals. Bangkok and Phuket are its biggest drawcards, but there are a wide range of attractions all across this tropical country. In fact, 20% of its GDP is based on tourism but in 2020 it experienced an economic contraction of 6.1% due to the international COVID lockdown.

It is no surprise then that the government is keen to re-open its borders so that its economy can start to recover. Its national tourism board TAT provides up to date information on this process: Thailand re-opening.

Phuket was chosen as a pilot scheme to “test the waters” and was re-opened on 1 July 2021, with quite stringent entry and performative requirements for tourists. Koh Samui, Phangan and Koh Tao soon followed on 15 July 2021. However, this initiative has unfortunately been timed to coincide with Thailand’s worst outbreak in COVID cases since the pandemic began. Thailand had been doing incredibly well in minimizing confirmed cases and deaths early April 2021. Since then the country has seen cases rise dramatically to more than 20,000 per day. Deaths had been almost non-existent until then but now count at roughly 300 per day. It appears that the country has been transparent in correctly reporting statistics and there have been no excess deaths to date.

The health crisis is still raging. The worst hot regions are Bangkok, Samut Sakhon, Chonburi, Samut Prakan, Nakhon Pathom, Nakhon Ratchasima and Ratchaburi. In order to try to contain the virus, Bangkok and 28 other regions have been put under partial lockdown, including travel curbs, shopping mall closures, and night-time curfews until the end of August. It remains to be seen what course of action the government will choose as a result of this turn of events but it will likely cause a delay in re-opening.

Large protests have started on the streets of Bangkok to highlight the frustrations of the people, particularly those from poor rural areas, who are suffering immensely from the economic situation and what is seen as a slow and unfair vaccine roll-out. So far over 25,000,000 doses of vaccine have been administered, which is equivalent to just under 20% of the population.

Currently the dive sites of Phuket are open and day trips are operating out of Chalong. Our day trips from Koh Samui are currently not running due to a lack of tourist demand. A small number of Similan liveaboards will begin operating for the 2021/22 season.

Visit our Dive The World Thailand website for more details on all the different scuba destinations in Thailand.