Bangkok, Feb 24 (IANS): The hotel employees in Thailand's five tourist destinations are among the first people in the Southeast Asian country to receive the Covid vaccine shots, Tourism and Sports Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said on Wednesday.

Phiphat made this remark after the arrival of Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines, saying this group of people are in a close contact with hotel guests, Xinhua reported.

The five tourist destinations are the Chiang Mai, Chonburi, Phuket, and Krabi provinces and the Koh Samui island of the Surat Thani province, with each of them to get 20,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to Phiphat.

Foreign visitors to Thailand will be legally bound to undergo a 14-day quarantine at the hotels they will choose to stay, Phiphat said.

Hotel owners in the cited tourist destinations have already turned their hotels into an alternative quarantine venue for incoming tourists, he added.

The priority groups to get vaccinated in Thailand also include medical personnel, patients with chronic illnesses and the people aged 60 and over.

The first batch of China's Sinovac vaccines arrived in the Thai capital Bangkok on Wednesday morning, putting Thailand on track to start its national inoculation drive.