Transcripts of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether or not Visa Extension might be a key to bringing in more tourism. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Tourist trap. Quoting directly: The Thai Hotels Association said the Extensions might only benefit long-haul travellers who typically stay here for weeks or months in the cool season. However, short-haul markets might not extend their stays because their travel behaviour tends towards short but frequent trips." 

Yeah, so what we are talking about here is they basically have been saying, it seems like even on an international level, many countries are trying to spur tourism via Immigration Policy by essentially creating more avenues for Visa Exemptions, making it easier for people to get into countries as tourists and the result is there has been kind of a race, a competition if you will, even among countries here in Southeast Asia. China is now getting into it; they have opened up certain Visa Exemption options to certain European passport holders, we are seeing a lot of this. The question raised is okay they sort of started off with Visa Exemptions and now they are kind of saying well would be having more laxity with regard to Visa Extension in-country be a benefit to Thailand? Well I think you need to look at the difference between a long-stay tourist or even somebody who is looking to basically live in Thailand or make Thailand their base, you need to look at the difference between that and a true short-stay, a true tourist.

I think the Visa Exemption stuff is probably good for attracting people who want to come to Thailand for a couple of weeks, maybe two, three weeks, maybe a couple of months at max. You start getting into these longer Visa Extensions and things, and I don't see who you are really attracting there, because there is really two kinds of folks at the end of the day. People who want to effectively live here or spend a large portion of time in Thailand like again depending on certain circumstances, but let's call it three to six months a year, and then there are people that want to spend two to three weeks a year; those are very different folks and they have very different priorities. So personally I kind of wonder if doing anything with regard to extension in-country will have as much of a benefit as these recent changes to Visa Exemption status have had.