Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing "is this the end of Thailand's tourism sector?" and by "it" I have had a lot of people send me correspondence since the past few days commenting on the Prime Minister's decision to suspend the Thailand Pass system, suspend the "test and go" system whereby folks were able to get into Thailand and basically do one night in a hotel, do a swab test and then if they tested negative they basically were just off to the races; they could just go on about their business in greater Thailand. 

I have got to say and I have done opinion videos on this, I think this will have a tremendous negative impact on tourism. We are already seeing inquiries where people contacting us wanting to get information about coming to Thailand. We have seen them drop off just in the hours literally that have transpired since this announcement came down. So, do I think long-term it could have an impact? Yeah I do. Now they are saying that they are going to review the matter again on January 4th. If they review it and things start to reopen and in the meantime we see the lockdown here in Thailand continue to ease, maybe it is just a hiccup; maybe it is just a stutter step on the road back to normality. I am going to try to continue to be optimistic but at the same time the lawyer in me is kind of continuously cynical in a way. 

I do think that yeah, again I can't stress enough, this really needs to be weighed cost benefit. I have made it clear that I don't necessarily think Omicron really rises to the level of the benefit from just locking everybody out and making them all quarantine, I don't really see the benefit especially in light of the fact that this Omicron especially does not appear to have near the level of fatalities. It is not nearly as lethal; in fact it has been described from what I have read and again I am not a doctor that's not my bailiwick, I am not claiming to be but from what I have read from doctors for example in South Africa, it is very "mild".

So that aside, that is just kind of one way to look at it. But yes, this is going to have ramifications for the tourism sector. I especially think in the near term it is not particularly positive. As far as long term, it remains to be seen but it is not going to be, I think at best if it ends quickly and we just put it behind us, it might be just chalked up to skittishness or we saw a brief interregnum and then it kind of continued onward. If it doesn't, if it goes on, I think it could get even worse. So again at best it has kind of a mildly negative impact; at worst it could be substantially negative in the long run I think.