The only thing Pattaya officials and local tourism companies and associations could agree on at their latest meeting was that the city needs to reopen to foreign tourists soon. How to make that happen, however, remains a mystery.
Mayor Sonthaya Kunplome had no answers and no good news for anyone at the July 7 session. The city already had submitted its “Pattaya Move On” strategy to reopen Pattaya Oct. 1 to the National Security Council but heard nothing back. With the local economy plummeting, Sonthaya said a revised strategy with a targeted Sept. 1 opening date now will be submitted.
Hopefully, he said, it won’t be ignored, but Sonthaya noted that the NSC has a lot of other problems, including planning for a possible national lockdown, management of migrant workers at construction camps, and a daily coronavirus caseload that has now reached 7,000 a day.
The only way Pattaya can reopen is if 70 percent of the local population gets vaccinated against Covid-19. But the government is steering the vast majority of its small supply of vaccines to Bangkok, leaving Pattaya’s vaccination plan far behind schedule.
Sonthaya said the city cannot promise the people in the tourism industry, pubs, bars, restaurants and all other nightlife workers an exact time for reopening.
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