The association’s chairperson, Marisa Sukosol Nunbhakdi, said on Monday that the survey also revealed that 51 per cent of the hotels had suffered a drop in revenue from the previous month. Meanwhile, 49 per cent of the hotels were only able to make 30 per cent of the revenue they had earned before the Covid-19 pandemic. This was the same percentage found in the January survey, Marisa said.

Only 19 per cent of the hotels are now earning half of the revenue they earned before the Covid crisis hit Thailand’s tourism industry, she said, adding that these hotels enjoyed about 40 per cent occupancy last month.

Marisa said room occupancy rates in February rose thanks to the government’s tourism promotion subsidies and also because it resumed the Test & Go scheme at the beginning of the month.

However, she said, there is still a scarcity of foreign tourists compared to pre-Covid times because many foreigners are staying away over fears of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant and the high cost of the mandatory RT-PCR tests.

She said the percentage of hotels operating at a normal level in February was 72 per cent, down from 73 per cent in January.

Marisa added that 3 per cent of hotels in Thailand were still closed in February and that these hotels had been closed for more than six months. However, she added, they should reopen in the second quarter of this year.

The survey also found that only 59.8 per cent of the hotel workforce had returned to the industry.