TravTalk India Online Magazine
Unveiling a new product, TravelBullz is now offering travel agents the option to book Alternative State Quarantine (ASQ) hotels in Thailand on its portal. This may well serve as a new opportunity for agents to earn while selling outbound packages, also allowing them to enjoy a multitude of other benefits.
Manas Dwivedi
For non-Thai nationality travellers, many hotels in Thailand, together with hospitals, have launched Alternative State Quarantine packages for those returning from abroad. The ASQ is a process of quarantine at government-accredited hotels in Bangkok at the traveller’s own expense. These hotels have been approved by Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Defence, and cover a wide price range.
The packages are being made available online, and provide a big opportunity to all travel agents to make bookings seamlessly for their clients and earn additional revenue.With instant confirmation, trade partners can easily complete COE to Thailand, finish visa formalities and book the hotels at best rates on www.travelbullz.com.
Sharing more information is KD Singh, Founder & President, TravelBullz, who says that there are numerous benefits for travel agents in booking ASQ hotels on TravelBullz.
“Instant confirmation and vouchers, seamless transactions, a wide variety of hotel choices based on their client’s budget, detailed process and requirements listed on the booking engine for the benefit of agents, and client information are some of the few advantages that our state-of-the-art booking engine provides,” he shares.
Looking at the current situation, Singh feels that long quarantine requirements are affecting tourism in Thailand from the Indian market. “Yes, it has had a huge impact. Normal leisure travel is non-existent and only essential travel is taking place due to the quarantine requirement. However, we are expecting the Thai government to relax mandatory quarantine stay to be reduced to seven days for vaccinated travellers and 10 days for non-vaccinated travellers,” he says.
With the arrival of the COVID-19 vaccine and the rapid pace at which travellers are getting inoculated, Singh thinks that once a single global system of a vaccine passport is approved, the tourism business will start becoming normal.
“Once that is implemented, all tourism boards will open borders for travel and incoming tourist traffic will start reaching pre-COVID levels. We are also expecting that in the next 6-12 months, travel restrictions may be lifted and international travel may start again as normal, subject to no new challenges arising due to COVID. Vaccination will give travellers an insurance and safety against COVID, and they will start travelling and planning their vacations,” Singh believes, adding that social distancing and masks will become the norm even with the vaccine in place. This is not going to change.
TravelBullz is keenly waiting for Thailand and Singapore to open their borders, and looks forward to welcoming guests to these destinations.
“We believe that now is the time for the outbound travel fraternity to start preparing for outbound travel and business. We see light at the end of the tunnel and look forward to business going back to normal across all destinations,” he concludes.
