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Omicron Variant Casts a Huge Shadow Over Tourism for 2022

Thailand has suffered another blow to its tourism because of an outbreak of a highly transmissible strain of Omicron in many countries. In response, the government suspended its Thailand Pass program.
This allows prospective visitors to register for their planned visit to the kingdom through the Test & Go program and the sandbox tourism promotion programs. This is the exception of one in Phuket.
Although the most recent virus variant Omicron appears to be less virulent than the one from last year, most tourism businesses believe the tourism situation in 2022 will not be worse than last year, because it is less likely to spread rapidly. A high proportion of the country’s citizens have been vaccinated against Covid-19. Also, its level of experience in dealing with the pandemic in the past few years is impressive.
There has been frustration among tourism operators in the affected provinces due to the suspension of the tourist registration system, except for that in Phuket.
Hua Hin Tourism
According to Krot Rochanasathian, president of Hua Hin Recharge, the tourism reopening project of Prachuap Khiri Khan, Phuket can remain open for international tourists as well.
The new outbreak involving Omicron is unlikely to become as severe as it was in past waves of Covid-19, and Hua Hin is capable of handling the new spread of the virus.
British tourists who travelled from Phuket to Hua Hin recently were found to have Omicron due to the effective local disease control measures, he said, adding that Hua Hin requires foreign visitors to undergo an RT-PCR Covid-19 test twice.
In Hua Hin, the average bed occupancy rate is 30%, meaning the hospital is prepared to handle a surge in Covid-19 patients should a new outbreak occur, he said.
Nevertheless, the government’s decision on Dec 22 to suspend registration for the Thailand Pass has negatively affected many tourists planning to visit Hua Hin, he said.
Several booked hotels in January, and many planned to stay for some time. Others could work from anywhere in the world, but they chose to spend time in Hua Hin, he said.
“These are high-quality tourists who fly in private jets and spend at least ten days in Thailand,” he said.
He said Hua Hin and Cha-am in Phetchaburi province are tourist areas with a great deal of potential to attract high-quality, long-stay tourists with high spending power, especially from Scandinavia.
Foreign Tourist in Pattaya
While adjusting to the global tourism situation, Pattaya City will continue to focus more on attracting Thai tourists to visit.
Rattanachai Sutthidechachai, vice-president of Pattaya’s business and tourism association, said: “We don’t expect much from foreign visitors because there are still a lot of limitations.”
Approximately 4,000 foreigners have visited Pattaya since Nov 1, and only 20% have been “real” tourists, while the rest are foreigners with businesses or families here, he said.
Pattaya’s tourism will be seriously affected if Omicron results in a new lockdown, he said. “This will severely harm our Thai visitors.”
Chon Buri has organized up to 12 tourism promotion events each week since the country reopened in November, he said, which has boosted the city’s tourism-based economy.
I believe that the Covid-19 pandemic will come to an end in 2022, even though the virus won’t disappear from the world,” Mr Rattanachai said. In addition to the EEC scheme, Chon Buri will host trade expos, business seminars, and trade and investment events, he said.
Phuket Tourism
The resort island of Phuket, meanwhile, has a somewhat different tourism situation, since international visitors are still allowed through the Phuket Sandbox. A partial tourism reopening pilot program was first implemented by the province last year.
Although the Thailand Pass tourist registration system has been suspended, Phuket is still planning to welcome more than 100,000 visitors who have already registered to enter Thailand through the Phuket Sandbox, according to Thanusak Pheungdet, chairman of Phuket’s chamber of commerce.
Between July and October, 60,000 foreign visitors came to Phuket under the sandbox programme, and 40,000 more arrived in November, he said. Phuket must be thanked for the government’s trust,” he said.
In December, Phuket welcomed about 300,000 visitors, including Thais and foreigners entering Thailand via Bangkok and continuing on to the province, said Bhummikitti Raktaengam, president of Phuket’s tourism business association.
A slowdown in bookings would be a warning sign, he said, if the Omicron variant spreads rapidly and results in a worse-than-expected global Covid-19 situation. According to him, tourists are still coming to Phuket despite no significant cancellations of bookings.
Chiang Mai Tourism
Although for a different reason, the cancellation of the Covid-19 Test & Go scheme has not affected Chiang Mai either.
According to Ratthaphon Naradison, deputy provincial governor, most tourists visiting this spot were Thais. Most of the tourists visiting Chiang Mai recently were Thais travelling by air, according to Phanlaphon Sae-Chiu, president of the tourism industry council of Chiang Mai.
In Chiang Mai, there are about 14,000 flights a day with more than 150 passengers, he said. As long as this pace continues for two months, its tourism sector will begin to recover, he said, and local business operators should be able to stay afloat.
He said tourism will bring 3 billion baht in income to the province during the New Year festival alone. The reopening of the country has contributed to increased tourism in Chiang Mai, but only by less than 5%, according to La-iat Bungsithong, president of the Upper North’s hotel association.
In November and December, most tourists in Chiang Mai were Thai. During this year’s first and second quarters, the number of foreign visitors is expected to increase. According to him, hotels expect a rise of 50-60% in the number of guests during the last two months of 2021 as a result of government tourism and spending promotion campaigns.

News
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.
Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
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News
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, To repay $6.4 Million

Washington — The Supreme Court rejected Martin Shkreli’s appeal on Monday, after he was branded “Pharma Bro” for raising the price of a lifesaving prescription.
Martin appealed a decision to repay $64.6 million in profits he and his former company earned after monopolizing the pharmaceutical market and dramatically raising its price. His lawyers claimed the money went to his company rather than him personally.
The justices did not explain their reasoning, as is customary, and there were no notable dissents.
Prosecutors, conversely, claimed that the firm had promised to pay $40 million in a settlement and that because Martin orchestrated the plan, he should be held accountable for returning profits.
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli
Martin was also forced to forfeit the Wu-Tang Clan’s unreleased album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which has been dubbed the world’s rarest musical album. The multiplatinum hip-hop group auctioned off a single copy of the record in 2015, stipulating that it not be used commercially.
Shkreli was convicted of lying to investors and defrauding them of millions of dollars in two unsuccessful hedge funds he managed. Shkreli was the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals (later Vyera), which hiked the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill after acquiring exclusive rights to the decades-old medicine in 2015. It cures a rare parasite condition that affects pregnant women, cancer patients, and HIV patients.
He defended the choice as an example of capitalism in action, claiming that insurance and other programs ensured that those in need of Daraprim would eventually receive it. However, the move prompted criticism, from the medical community to Congress.
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli
Attorney Thomas Huff said the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling was upsetting, but the high court could still overturn a lower court judgment that allowed the $64 million penalty order even though Shkreli had not personally received the money.
“If and when the Supreme Court does so, Mr. Shkreli will have a strong argument for modifying the order accordingly,” he told reporters.
Shkreli was freed from prison in 2022 after serving most of his seven-year sentence.
SOURCE | AP
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