The public flooded the government’s “Tiew Thai Khon La Krueng” travel campaign site with registrations on its opening day on Tuesday, only to find the system had been crashing since the morning.
Tourism and Sports Minister Sorawong Thienthong urged patience and assured the public that their entitlements to discounts and vouchers for low-season travel remained secure.
The campaign was designed to spur domestic tourism and support the hotel business, with the government subsidising travel expenses. Thai citizens are eligible for travel subsidies by registering at the Thai website www.เที่ยวไทยคนละครึ่ง.com or the Amazing Thailand app, with entitlements available for use from July 4 to Oct 31.
However, overwhelming demand caused both the Amazing Thailand and ThaID identity verification apps to crash shortly after registration opened at 8am.
The system was still inaccessible as of Tuesday evening, with no clear timeline for restoration.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) stressed that registration is not capped, and entitlements, five per registrant, totalling 500,000, are only counted once payments are made.
According to the TAT, more than 700,000 users attempted to verify their identity via ThaID, which can handle just 100 verifications per hour.
Mr Sorawong attributed the crash to failures in the ThaID system, overseen by the Ministry of Interior.
Nataphol Tovichakchaikul, a People’s Party MP for Chiang Mai, criticised the technical failures surrounding the campaign.
Mr Nataphol noted that while the project had been in preparation since early this year and the backend systems were reportedly ready by March, the Amazing Thailand app — intended for registration — did, in fact, crash on the first day.
