All of 560,000 room nights in the government's hotel subsidy programme for domestic tourists were booked within four days, while the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) said it might ask the new government to continue this scheme.
The fifth phase of the "We Travel Together" programme, which provides domestic tourists with a 40% subsidy on hotel rooms, was open for booking on Tuesday, as the eligible travel period runs until April 30 this year.
By 11am on Friday, the "We Travel Together" website showed that the privilege was no longer available.
TAT governor Yuthasak Supasorn said on Friday that if tourists and tourism operators would like this subsidy scheme to continue in order to boost purchasing power in response to a sluggish economic outlook, the agency will likely propose its extension to the new government after the general election, which has been tentatively set for May 7.
However, some conditions should be improved to help spur more tourism income to secondary cities and small- and medium-sized operators while encouraging tourists to travel more during weekdays to avoid congestion, Mr Yuthasak said.
The fifth phase was allocated a budget of 2 billion baht in January and is expected to generate direct income tallying 9.2 billion baht.
The government started the first phase in July 2020 in a bid to stimulate domestic consumption, as borders were closed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The four previous phases of the scheme had a total budget of 27 billion baht for 11.5 million room nights, which generated more than 49 billion baht for the local economy.
The overall economic impact from all phases of the scheme is projected to total 58.6 billion baht.
