Thai visa fee waiver for Indians falls flat as soaring airfares dampen travel plans

Instead of introducing more flights, various airlines seem to have jacked up the price, cashing in on the surge in demand for foreign travel mainly during the year-end festive season. This has come as a big blow to the tour operators in India - K Vijay Mohan, president, TTAA

Visakhapatnam: With the airlines in India deciding to allow international airfares go through the roof, the tourist-friendly decision of Thailand to waive off visa fees for Indians from November 10, 2023 to May 30 has failed to yield the desired response.

Visa waiver for 30-day for Indians and Taiwanese tourists was followed by the decision of Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to allow without visa fees for Chinese tourists from September 25, 2023 to February 29, 2024.

Tourism contributes a lion’s share of GDP to Thailand. Chinese tourists are the world’s largest to spend vacation in Thailand followed by Indians due to which Chinese and Indian hotels have mushroomed in Bangkok, Pattaya, Phuket and other tourist spots.

As a proactive measure following the heavy jolt to the economy during the pandemic, the Thailand government has introduced a VAT refund scheme at various airports for foreign tourists on purchase of gold, diamonds and white goods on production of invoice.

Domestic and international tourism started gaining momentum after borders with foreign countries were opened up following improvement in Covid situation in 2021. Thailand received 356 billion Thai Baht in 2021 from the tourism industry. Now due to the visa waiver offer, it has set a target to achieve 2.38 trillion baht. One baht is equivalent to Rs 2.34. Thailand normally charges 200 baht for Indians to obtain a visa on arrival and for getting express visa without much waiting, one has to shell down 200 baht extra. On an average 10,000 to 15,000 people travel from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh by Thai Airlines and IndiGo from Hyderabad or IndiGo and other airlines from Kolkata, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar.

“Instead of introducing more flights, various airlines seem to have jacked up the price, cashing in on the surge in demand for foreign travel mainly during the year-end festive season. This has come as a big blow to the tour operators in India,” said K Vijay Mohan, president, Tours and Travel Association of Andhra (TTAA).

He told Bizz Buzz on Thursday that generally low-cost airlines like Scoot, IndiGo, AirAsia and others should have offered return tickets at Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 from destinations like Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata and Bengaluru. Instead, they have gone up by more than double mainly during the festival season. The expected demand for Thailand, where luxury hotels are available at tourist resorts for an affordable price unlike other most-frequented places like Bali, Jakarta, Colombo, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

Padi Srnivasa Kumar, who runs a travel agency said the authorities should regulate the prices to enable more overseas travel to Southeast Asian countries. He also wanted the support of the Airport Authority of India and Indian Navy to introduce more foreign airlines from Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada.

A study conducted by Airport Council International revealed that the airfare surge in India in Asia Pacific was the highest with 41 per cent increase followed by UAE (34 per cent), Singapore (30 per cent) and Australia (23 per cent). The study was conducted after analysing data from 36,000 aviation routes and top 10 aviation markets.