The Ministry of Tourism and Sports have asked the government to extend the tourism stimulus measures for another year and yesterday deputy government spokesman Watchara Kannika confirmed that the measures will be extended from April 1, 2010 and go through to March 31, 2011.
The free tourist visa measure was set to expire on March 5, 2010 and it looks like it still will and there will be a period of 3 weeks where the tourist visa will again be charged for before the April 1st stimulus measures start.The good news is that coupled with the free tourist visa initiative each foreign tourist will also be granted $10,000 of free riot insurance which will cover their trip in the event that things get dicey on the political front. The insurance policy provides for payments of up to $10,000 in the event of death, injury, and/or trip inconvenience, and will only cover people in possession of a 60-day tourist visa.
The Riot insurance was first instituted last year between the months of May and October when many foreign tourists complained that they couldn’t buy trip insurance due to Thailand’s ongoing political instability. The trip insurance will cost the Thai government $1.00 per tourist or about 15 million dollars over the next year.
The Ministry of Tourism and Sports noted that tourism was down by 3% from 2008-2009 and they feel that continuing the stimulus measures will help bring tourism numbers back up to where they are expected to be for 2010. It’s estimated by the Ministry that 15.3 to 15.5 million foreign tourists will visit Thailand in 2010.