Airports of Thailand Offers Huge Discounts for Airlines and Business

Airlines and concessionaires that suspended operations will not owe rent or concession charges for 9 months or until operations resumed, AOT said.

Thailand’s State-owned Airports of Thailand Pcl has said it will offer new measures for airlines and businesses to mitigate the Covid-19 impact. Because of the decline in flights and passengers amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Airports of Thailand (AOT) said it would offer a 50% reduction in rents, terminal fees and landing charges from April to December for airlines and businesses.

The announcement comes after AOT warned on Wednesday that it expected passenger traffic to drop by 53% for the fiscal year ending in September.

Airlines and concessionaires that suspended operations will not owe rent or concession charges for 9 months or until operations resumed, AOT said.

Duty-free retailer King Power, which holds the majority of duty-free and commercial concessions at airports, has closed its stores and is selling non-duty-free products online.

AOT operates six airports, including the country’s largest international hub, Suvarnabhumi Airport, and saw nearly 900,000 flights and 141.8 million passengers in the year that ended September 2019, booking profits of 25 billion baht ($773.5 million).

Its airport on the resort island of Phuket is closed.

Thailand has reported 2,839 cases and 50 deaths from the coronavirus.

The country’s aviation regulator in early April imposed a ban on passenger flights until the end of the month to curb the spread of the virus. The government had already banned the entry of non-resident foreigners in March.

Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy stands to lose 1.3 trillion baht, most of it in the tourism sector.

More than 2.57 million people have been reported to be infected by the coronavirus globally, and 178,574 have died, according to a Reuters tally.

Source - Chiang Rai Times

Thailand - Divers Recover Over a Ton of Ocean Waste at Phi Phi Island

The “Clean Me Phi Phi Today” project will continue until May 12 when the lockdown on Phi Phi Island is expected to be lifted.

Divers have recovered over a ton of ocean waste on Thailand’s famous Phi Phi Island in an environment conservation project. Environmental activists and diving instructors implemented the projects during the covid-19 lockdown.

The “Clean Me Phi Phi Today” project will continue until May 12 when the lockdown on Phi Phi Island is expected to be lifted.

Participating activists, divers and business operators collected the likes of auto tires; glass and plastic bottles; ans plastic waste at the main pier of the Island.

They said some of the waste was swept into the sea during the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004.

Prasert Wongna, head of tourism business operators’ club of Phi Phi, said with the travelling ban it was a great opportunity to revive the environment of the island.

The project also draws Phi Phi Island community to improve waste management and sewage system of the island.

Source - Chiang Rai Times

Empty Asian beaches

Sun, sea, sand and space as coronavirus empties Asia's beaches

Just weeks ago, some visitors were complaining that Bali's famous sand and surf spot of Kuta Beach was way too busy.

Now it is deserted, with access banned as part of measures to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, which has killed nearly 100,000 people around the world and infected more than 1.5 million.

The picture in Bali is similar at other top Asia Pacific destinations such as Sydney's Bondi Beach and Thailand's Phuket.

"To stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, all the beaches in Kuta area closed for public," reads a sign in Bali, Indonesia, the country with the highest coronavirus death toll in Asia after China, where the virus emerged.

COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus, which emerged in central China late last year.

The virus has killed 306 people in Indonesia out of 3,512 cases, but more limited testing than in neighboring countries means the figures are widely believed to be higher.

The long Easter weekend would normally be a busy time in Bali, but not this year.

"Business is down almost 95 percent," said souvenir shop owner Ruju, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. "I have to borrow money just to buy food."

Not everyone agreed with the restrictions on the beaches.

Among them was Australian Daniel Baker, who said it would be better to just enforce social distancing of up to two meters to prevent the virus spreading.

"I should be able to swim or surf, it's important for mental health and exercise to stay healthy to fight COVID."

Bondi shut

Bans on public gatherings larger than two also forced Sydney's Bondi Beach to close over the Easter holiday. On Manly Beach, people were allowed to exercise but not swim.

Australians have been told to stay home or face dire consequences in the crackdown against the coronavirus, even as its spread slows. Australia had 6,152 infections by Friday with 53 virus-related deaths.

The co-owner of Bondi Surf Seafoods, George Dimitrios said 2020 was the worst year in his family's 47-year-old business and Good Friday sales had been disastrous.

"We've had the bushfires, we've had the rain and now we've got this," he said.

Bondi made headlines in March when thousands of people were seen ignoring social distancing rules at its world-famous beach. Authorities have since opened up a pop-up clinic.

On the Thai resort island of Phuket, coronavirus has largely eliminated the tourist industry on which it has survived. It is now on a partial lockdown to curb the spread of the virus, which has killed 33 people in Thailand and infected at least 2,473.

The usually busy Walking Street in the Old Phuket Town was almost empty.

"The impact is so severe because most of our customers are tourists," said Ittipat Klomkliang, owner of the Roast Coffee Cafe.

"From China and now Europe, a lot of the tourists have gone to zero."

Source - TheJakartaPost

Great Wall of #China partly reopens to visitors

The famous Badaling section of the Great Wall in Beijing has partly opened, after being closed for almost two months due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The scenic area will be open between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., and the daily number of visitors will be capped at 19,500. As of 2 p.m. Tuesday, a total of 892 tickets had been reserved.

Visitors must book tickets on the official website or through WeChat in advance and register with their personal information to get a health code, while their temperatures will be taken upon entry.

A one-way circular tour route has been designed to prevent the gathering of crowds. The cableway, the China Great Wall Museum, the ancient Great Wall and some other sections remain closed.

The Badaling Great Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is located in Beijing's Yanqing District, about 60 km northwest of the city center. It was the earliest section to open and is the most popular segment of the Great Wall among tourists. The scenic area received more than 9.9 million visitors in 2018.

Source - TheJakartaPost

Over 30 percent of tourist sites reopened in #China

A total of 3,714 tourist sites in 28 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities on the Chinese mainland had reopened as of Monday, accounting for over 30 percent of the total, said an official Wednesday.

This came as part of the efforts to resume work and operation in the cultural and tourism sector as the situation concerning the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is improving in the country, according to Gao Zheng, head of the industrial development department of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

The reopened sites mainly include outdoor sites such as mountains, hills and parks, and no cases of COVID-19 had been reported in these spots, he said.

Moreover, over 180 museums had reopened as of Sunday, and construction of a number of museums also restarted, he said.

Epidemic prevention and control measures such as online real-name reservations to control the number of visitors were taken by the museums based on the instructions of the National Cultural Heritage Administration, according to Gao.

Source - TheJakartaPost

Thailand - Visas on arrival being denied 18 nationalities

(Update) Beginning on Friday (March 13), visitors to Thailand from 18 countries will no longer be eligible for visas on arrival, Interior Minister Anupong Paochinda announced on Thursday. 

The measure, aimed at checking the spread of the Covid-19 virus, will remain in effect until September 30.

Anupong said visitors must apply for visas in their home countries and bring a certificate of sound health.

Visitors from hard-hit locales Italy, South Korea and Hong Kong also become ineligible for visa-free entry, he said.

The 18 countries are Bulgaria, Bhutan, Cyprus, Ethiopia, Fiji, Georgia, India, Kazakhstan, Malta, Mexico, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu and “China (including Taiwan)”.

A government panel made the call on Wednesday at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who is also heading the Covid-19 management centre.

Prayut and Anupong signed off on this Interior Ministry order on Thursday. 

 However, Department of Consular Affairs' director-general Chatree Atchananant said earlier today that there would be no official announcement of the measure until the Cabinet considers it on March 17, before Anupong came out later to confirm that the measure would be implemented tomorrow (March 13).

Source - TheNation

Visitors vanish from Asia's most visited sites

As dawn breaks the unmistakable tapered towers of Angkor Wat emerge from the gloom - but for once there are no tourists jostling on its steps to capture Cambodia's most famous sunrise.

Asia's most Instagrammable sites - temples, promenades, shopping streets,

museums and mausoleums - are empty, victims of a virus keeping visitors at home.

The usual crowds have evaporated from Sensoji temple in Tokyo to Shanghai's Bund; abandoning the viewpoint at The Peak in Hong Kong and alleviating the pedestrian crush along Sydney Harbour.

Many of the now vanished visitors are from China - a country whose travelers have completely reshaped the tourist economies of Asia over the last few years, yet where only around 10 percent of the population hold passports.

At the Angkor Wat complex, a 12th century marvel of Khmer architecture whose unique crenellations and reliefs lure millions each year, high season has brought the lowest number of tourists on record.

Chinese-speaking Cambodian guide Hor Sophea has not taken any tours since late January. Several weeks on, money is getting tight.

"I've never seen so few tourists," said the 36-year, gesturing at the large moat inside the Angkor Wat complex, whose gangways normally bustle with selfie-taking hordes but are now empty.

"I am very worried... I don't know how much longer we can carry on like this."

The Angkor complex in Siem Reap province attracts the bulk of the kingdom's foreign tourists -- which hit a record 6.6 million in 2019, nearly half of whom were from China.

But the outbreak of the coronavirus has withered Chinese tourist arrivals by 90 percent.

Prime Minister Hun Sen has announced tax breaks for hotels and guesthouses in Siem Reap for four months to offset the losses.

But the discovery on Saturday of the first Cambodian with the infection - in Siem Reap - is likely to cement the stay-at-home mentality among many travelers.

The economic impact is also cascading across Asia.

In Bali, piers once bristling with arrivals from China are now decorated with moored boats, while in Tokyo the slump in mainland visitors - as well as South Koreans - is hammering restaurants in tourist areas.

At the Tsukiji fish market some restaurants say their take is nearly 70 percent down.

"People stopped coming from China during the Lunar New Year... the streets and shops around here are near-empty," Hiroshi Oya, 61, a cook at a Japanese seafood restaurant told AFP.

"Then South Koreans stopped coming too. The tuna shop next to us decided to close temporarily to avoid running costs," he added.

But for those who are inured to the panic gripping the globe and choose to navigate travel restrictions and the morass of quarantine, a rare privilege of empty sites is their reward.

At the Angkor complex, even Ta Prohm -- the 'Tomb Raider Temple' famed for its embrace by giant tree roots and a Hollywood film franchise -- has only a smattering of visitors each day.

"We're very very lucky. Covid-19 has probably done us a favor," Australian tourist Andres Medenis, who came for sunrise at Angkor Wat, told AFP.

"But the economy is going to be really affected by that... so I feel sorry for the local people." 

The JakartPost