Thailand considering travel "bubble" with Singapore

I don't know how much this will benefit Singapore's economy but it certainly could boost Thailand's if it ends up happening. Singaporeans are just as frustrated with the ongoing Covid-19 business as the rest of us, but they also have the misfortune of living in one of the smallest countries in the world and basically no possible recreational outlet.

I quite like visiting Singapore, but I couldn't imagine living there because of the cost. Now imagine that this tiny island nation is the ONLY place you can go for over a year. I know many people who live in Singapore and they are losing their damn minds because most of them regularly cross over into Malaysia or Thailand in order to go on vacations and of course, none of that has been allowed for quite some time.

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Singapore already has some semblance of a travel bubble with Australia and New Zealand and Thailand is hoping to get in on the action as well. The talks are that if this travel bubble succeeds that Thailand would also be able to accept tourists from New Zealand and Australia as well.

However, I hate to be a Debbie Downer here but there are a number of reasons why I don't think that this is going to end up happening. For starters, Thailand doesn't exactly have the same level of credibility on the world's stage that the other 3 nations involved do. It is extremely well-known that the Thai government is continually corrupt to the core and scandals involving all levels of government are very common in this country. There is a lot of reasons why other nations would be very skeptical of Thailand's reporting on basically anything, including and perhaps especially what their current Covid status is.

The media is suppressed in this country as well so there is very little way that anyone inside the country can get the real "scoop" on anything that can be considered even mildly critical of the government.

I do realize that this doesn't have anything to do with Covid directly, but I think it is enough for the more developed Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand to be take any of the stats presented by Thailand with a grain of salt. This government lies about so many other things that I can't imagine how this would be any different.

There is also the case where all of the other nations involved in this potential deal are island nations. All of them except Thailand that is and this country routinely has stories leak about dozens and even hundreds of people illegally crossing the borders in all directions on a daily basis. Therefore it is very conceivable that Thailand, even if they were telling the truth about their Covid stats, can't possibly have as secure of an environment as the other countries are involved. If this "bubble" were to exist at all I think it could only possibly work if island areas with airports in Thailand are the only possible destinations for the Singaporeans to travel to. Samui and Phuket are the only ones that I think fit this bill.

All in all if this happens it could be good for Thailand and it's very unemployed masses at the moment. I wouldn't hold your breath on it actually happening though. If I were a betting man, I would be willing to bet that Singapore refuses the deal (since they stand to gain very little from it) and this will disappear from the news without it ever being mentioned again.