Transcript of the about video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the situation in Ukraine and Russia which, my heart goes out to folks in the Ukraine, I feel for you, everybody involved, everybody detrimentally impacted by this, it is just a terrible situation all around. 

That said, I got to think about making this video when reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Ukraine war squashes more than Russian Tourism in Thailand. Quoting directly: "The nasty consequences of the Ukrainian war are threatening several sectors of the Thai economy. International tourism as a whole is threatened by the Russian invasion which is dissuading many travelers from traditional markets, notably Europe." 

So fair enough, I see the points here on especially regional travelers from Europe. Yeah I can see where that will have an impact but I have noticed this, I don't mean to pick on the Pattaya Mail, because I have seen this in other places; in fact it was front page of the Bangkok Post about a week ago talking about how the war was impacting Thai tourism. I can't remember the exact headline but I do know it was the front page I remember reading in the print edition of the Post. Well really? I mean my question is "really"? The war between Russia and Ukraine or Russia's war on Ukraine is really the driving factor in the deflation of Thai tourism? Because I think it is pretty safe to say the two years this country has been locked down and the present lockdowns and the present travel restrictions and the travel restrictions which were taken off briefly and then re-imposed in December, I mean I can give you a litany of things, to me that seems more like the culprit. Yes in the immediate term I don't dispute that this conflagration is having an impact, probably more regionally than anything but let's be honest here, the shutdowns and lockdowns did more damage than anything. 

Now I am not going to sit here and say that going back to the beginning when we were dealing with this back two years ago, yeah I was concerned myself. I have said this before I will say it again, I thought maybe some measures should be taken but I have been pretty vocal especially the past year about the fact that at what point a) does this end and at what point do we not look around at the protocols that we are undertaking and seriously question them when there is no available data that there is any appreciable benefit associated with a lot of these really Draconian measures? Setting that aside for the moment though, going back to this, yes I suspect there is, obviously Russian tourism is going to be impacted tremendously, definitely Ukrainian but regionally sure I get it and Europeans are probably going to be a little more hesitant to maybe take quite such a long trip. But, if anything is fully to blame for the downturn in tourism in Thailand I think for good or ill, we have got to look at the shutdown of the overall economy and the full shutdown of the tourism sector and yes it has managed to kind of hobble along but as we have discussed in other videos, especially now here in March 2022, other countries are opening up; opening up far more find more openly. They are far more open than Thailand and it remains to be seen if Thailand is going to take a cue from that and start pulling off some of these restrictions. 

My opinion, all this talk of treating this as endemic at that point that is it, cut, we are done. We get back to normal, literal normal, not new normal. Not "oh well it is like 2020 only you have to do x!" No, just it is endemic; it is out there, something we have got to deal with; it is over and done with. Hopefully that is where we get sooner rather than later but that said I think it is a little disingenuous to point all the blame for the problems of tourism on the current situation.