Sharjah24 – AFP: Hotels, street food carts and tuk-tuks are gearing up for the return of tourists to Bangkok as Thailand prepares to re-open on November 1 to fully vaccinated visitors after 18 months of Covid travel curbs.

But the steamy metropolis, the world's most-visited city before the pandemic, will take some time to get back to its pulsating, intoxicating old self, industry experts say.

The coronavirus pandemic sent visitor numbers plummeting from 40 million in 2019 to just 73,000 in the first eight months of 2021 -- leaving its tourism-reliant economy registering its worst performance in over two decades.

Authorities are desperate to revive the sector -- which accounts for a fifth of the economy -- despite Thailand still recording about 10,000 Covid infections a day and the vaccination rate lagging at about 40 percent.

The government is hopeful that a plan to phase out tough quarantine rules could lure visitors back to beaches despite the prevalence of the virus.

The kingdom is expecting the return of at least a million visitors by March and to generate about $30 billion in revenue through 2022, authorities say.

The absence of visitors has left an unmistakable impact on Bangkok's Chinatown, with shuttered shops visible under the glare of neon lights and lines of empty tuk-tuks.

That was when Thailand closed its airspace to international flights in a bid to keep Covid at bay.

After this restriction was relaxed, authorities imposed a 14-day hotel quarantine, discouraging all but the most determined travellers.

A scheme to make it easier to visit the southern holiday island of Phuket, introduced in July as a first step towards normalcy, drew only a few tens of thousands of people -- a drop in the ocean.