Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing so-called Digital Nomads here in Thailand. For those who are unaware, we are talking about folks who basically are sort of upwardly mobile insofar as they have pretty good employment or they have got small businesses oftentimes operating off the internet but basically folks that can work remotely so they are so-called Digital Nomads. If they have got a laptop or a tablet or a smartphone sometimes they can basically work from anywhere. I know Thailand has been sort of courting so called Digital Nomads. It became kind of like a pet project if you will during COVID because the thinking was well if we can get "higher net worth" or "higher spending" folks to come into Thailand, even though we didn't have the volume of previous times, that may be able to at least mitigate somewhat the fallout from the lack of Tourism. I think Digital Nomads are like anybody else. They are a mixed bag; I mean they're not 100% positives; they have drawbacks. I mean notably they have a tendency to move so these aren't folks that are particularly interested to come somewhere and just make that place their home, they are not immigrants in the strict sense of the term; Nomad is not a terrible appellation.

Meanwhile I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the East Asia Forum that's eastasiaforum.org, the article is titled: Will Thailand's New Residency Visa achieve results? Quoting directly: "Digital Nomads may not meet the eligibility requirement of Elite Visa programs but they invest heavily in local economies. This includes spending on accommodation and services infrastructure. Digital Nomadism boomed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and has only recently been considered as alternative lifestyle choice. It took off as remote work and working from home became mainstream along with the work-from-anywhere culture. Companies and individuals alike have embraced the promise and potential of remote work practices. While estimates vary, one study this year suggested that over 16 million US workers identify as Digital Nomads, a 131% increase from 2019." Well I don't know how much that last data point is really worth to anybody. I mean you can call yourself whatever you want. Over the years I have met a million people with different job titles and it didn't really mean they necessarily had any real substance or anything. 

That stated, yeah it is a good question. I am not sure overall so-called Digital Nomads are really going to be any kind of a magic bullet to sort of save tourism or anything. My premise as far as the travel industry to Thailand for example, I think probably there is probably more economic benefit in going for volume in terms of tourists rather than trying to sort of find high net worth folks to spend a lot of money here and maybe have less numbers. I just don't see that working as a practical matter. That said, we deal with a lot of digital nomad clients. Yeah they have specific needs and they can be very beneficial economically to a given jurisdiction so they definitely shouldn't be counted out but I definitely think there is far too much focus being placed on this particular subset of possible travellers to Thailand that I think it may warrant a little bit of rethinking.