The moment the nation has been praying for finally came last Monday after an 18-month spell where "Thainess" lost a little of its je ne sais quoi without the cacophonous backdrop of a steady stream of foreign tourists.
Thai etiquette takes on an aura of civility in the company of global guests, but left alone to fester, it can take a more repressive guise. Just ask the student protesters.
Minister of Tourism and Sports, Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn, visited the World Travel Market London to promote the lifting of stringent two-week quarantine requirements for eligible tourists from more than 60 countries while Siripakorn Cheawsamoot, deputy governor for marketing communications at the Tourism Authority of Thailand, talked up the nation's "Amazing New Chapters" publicity campaign.
It is a message the government hopes won't alienate those whose livelihoods depended on those halcyon days of backpackers sampling their first bag of salted crickets on Khao San Road's concrete stairway way to heaven, but will prove effective in tempting a new generation of Covid-aware travellers and families with its mix of romance and responsibility.
Before the pandemic, Thailand attracted 14 million overseas visitors annually and received 340 billion baht in foreign tourism income.
The Ministry of Tourism and Sports hopes that 20% of tourists will return after the country reopened on Nov 1. Therefore, we can expect to have 2 million foreign tourists generating a total of about 68 billion baht. This could boost our last-quarter GDP growth by 1.6%.
The government's message to tourists is crafted to carry echoes of the Thai experience of old while emphasising the broad variety of activities and excursions being offered under an umbrella of Covid-aware health and safety. The government hopes this mix of romance and responsibility will prove popular among a new breed of the more cautious international traveller.
However, the reality is that Thailand's early success in staving off the grimmest excesses of those early days of the pandemic have left it in a state of "Covid naivety" -- a term being applied to countries that did everything almost too right, and now lack experience in dealing with sizeable numbers of infections on a frequent basis.
When Singapore reopened in September, its swift return to normal life and normal revenue streams was supposed to be the reward for having had one of the lowest infection rates not just in the region, but in the world.
Yet, after less than a month, the city-state's authorities beat a hasty retreat as cases began mounting to levels beyond the capacity of the local healthcare infrastructure.
By contrast, countries such as the United States, the UK, and many European nations have done better. Their fatality rates rose to high levels during their own pandemics but fell during their reopenings.
This was also aided by sweeping and effective vaccination campaigns, where general populations stunned into actively seeking access to vaccines found governments wealthy enough to ensure supplies were abundant and savvy enough to make sure that information about risk and efficacy was disseminated clearly, provoking little suspicion.
Meanwhile, wildly differing domestic estimates of current vaccination rates from health authorities, government ministers and other agencies do little to douse suspicions that percentages said to range from 80-100% should be taken with a pinch of salt by a population still not yet immunised to widespread death and despair.
Countries like Thailand, Fiji, Chile, New Zealand and Australia must make sure they are ready for large waves of infections, regardless of the vaccine coverage, as economic factors have now begun to weigh more heavily on people's shoulders as they see images of football stadiums in England full once again, and concerts going ahead in countries that have suffered many more deaths than Thailand.
In general, all around the world, vaccines have worked to keep people out of the hospital once coverage was widespread, with most new cases presenting mild or no symptoms. Nevertheless, it is still a sad fact that deaths remain a genuine risk among senior citizens, particularly those with co-morbidities.
The reality is that Thailand is now on a path towards living with Covid and the government must combine prudence with a recognition that any further forms of tightening will be met with greater anger and resistance than during previous lockdowns.
People are anxious to move on as the budgets on which many in the kingdom are famed for managing to live on have become unbearably thin. So, as the government proceeds with its reopening it must balance caution against the enthusiasm which many might feel after the economy went into hibernation for the past 18 months.
