The Ministry of Transport of Thailand announced on October 1 that the legislation for legalizing ride sharing using a ride-hailing app for general vehicles (capacity 7 people or less) has been completed and registration of the service provider of the app has started. Expected to start operations in November.

The initial fare is 40-150 baht. The maximum fee that the provider can get is 25%, and it is not collected for meter taxis.

Thai Ministry of Tourism and Sports announced that they are going to start collecting tourism fees of 500 baht from foreign immigrants from the beginning of 2022 for the "Tourism Transformation Fund".

Governor Yuthasak Supasorn of Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) prospects that 10 million foreigners will arrive in 2022 and they can collect 5 billion baht during the first year by collecting a fee of 500 baht per person.

In early 2021 the National Tourism Policy Commission proposed to collect 300 baht per person from foreign immigrants, but an additional 200 baht is likely to be added.

After the proposal is approved, the Ministry of Tourism and Sports and TAT will discuss financing mechanisms, such as establishing a funding committee and collecting fees from foreign immigrants, with relevant authorities.

The purpose of the fund, which is made from the collected funds, is to focus not only on fiscal consolidation damaged by the pandemic, but rather on long-term economic growth in the region. The focus of the discussion will be on how the funds will be used.

According to the low-cost carrier Thai AirAsia, they will re-expanded their domestic network from this month. It has announced that they will resume operations on the Chiang Mai-Hua Hin route from October 15th and the Chiang Mai-Phuket route from the following 16th.

In addition, routes to Phitsanulok, Nan, Loei, Sakon Nakhon, Surat Thani, Krabi, and Trang from and to Don Muang Airport in Bangkok will start in sequence. There will resume a total of 20 domestic flights in October.

The Chiang Mai-Hua Hin route is scheduled to operate twice a week on Friday and Sunday, and the Chiang Mai-Phuket route is scheduled to operate three times a week on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The aircraft used will be an Airbus A320 (economy 180 seats). The flight schedule until the end of October is as follows.

Chiang Mai ⇔ Hua Hin (October 15, 2021 ~)
FD7900 CNX08: 45 HHQ10: 05 Friday and Sunday
FD7901 HHQ10: 35 CNX11: 55 Friday and Sunday

Chiang Mai ⇔ Phuket (October 16, 2021 ~)
FD3162 CNX12: 05 HKT14:00 Tue / Thu / Sat
FD3161 HKT09: 45 CNX11: 35 Tue / Thu / Sat

The "Samui Plus" program to accept vaccinated foreign tourists started on July 15. Under this program, it has been required to stay in the qurantine facility for 3 days after entering the island. But this restriction was relaxed from October 1st and fully vaccinated tourist can enter Koh Samui without quarantine.

Same as the Phuket Sandbox, the fully vccinated tourist who entered Samui by Samui Plus can move around the island freely if they tested negative of PCR-test after arriving the island. In addition, it is possible to move to Koh Phangan and Koh Tao from the next day. Furthermore, after the 8th day, it has become possible to go to other provinces in Thailand such as Bangkok, Pattaya and Chiang Mai.

In Phuket, 10,000 to 20,000 tourists visit the island every month since the Phuket Sandbox started, but Samui has only few hundreds tourists a month because the Samui Plus still imposed on sever restrictions on tourists and tourists had avoided to visit such destinations. With this relaxation of restrictions, it is expected that Samui will be selected as the destination for travel.

The Land Transport Bureau of the Ministry of Transport of Thailand announced that it auctioned 301 car license plates online on September 25 and 26, and sold a total of 102.76 million baht. All proceeds will be donated to the Road Safety Fund.

The highest bid was "8 กศ888 Bangkok" with a winning bid of 5.555555 baht.