Eighty percent of Pattaya’s spa and massage businesses have gone bust and surviving operators doubt Pattaya will reopen on schedule.
Chairat Rattanonat, president of the Eastern Spa & Wellness Association, said he doesn’t see Pattaya’s “Move On” proposal to reopen the city by October actually moving on. The country’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign is unclear and there seems to be no real timeline when it will be successful.
Fewer than 100 spas and massage businesses remain solvent, Chairat said, but they, too, may fail unless the government steps up and steps in to help them.
Most spas and massage parlors survived the first and second waves of Covid-19 in Thailand, but the third wave did them in. A big reason why is the government did not provide any financial assistance to the industry and has not given any indication of how long the business closures will last, Chairat said.
People cannot go on indefinitely unable to see any light at the end of the tunnel. The government needs to come up with a plan, progressively pursue it and work cooperatively with business owners instead of just closing everything down, he said.
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