Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the "Travel Bubble" term yet again. That term has popped once before, it sort of came back and popped again. Now we are discussing "Travel Bubbles" yet again.

In a recent article from Bloomberg, and that is bloomberg.com, the title of the article is: Thailand Seeks "Travel Bubble" pact with China to Spur Tourism.  Quoting directly:  "Thailand is in talks with China to establish a quarantine free travel corridor by January to rescue its ailing tourism industry. The agreement with Beijing will be subject to the success of a limited reopening of the Thai Tourism Industry to foreign travelers this month." That is the month of October, "according to Tourism Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn keep track on China which accounted for more than a quarter of Thailand's tourist arrivals before the pandemic.” It goes on and I am not going to quote further but I thought some things were noteworthy, most notably the Tourism Minister seems to be the source underlying this article. I urge those who are watching this video to go read this article yourself again title is Thailand Seeks "Travel Bubble" pact with China to Spur Tourism and you can find that on Bloomberg. I think I saw Thai Visa put this up. I had sort of seen it before Thai Visa sent it out, although I am mentioning them now but I found this sort of independently but this is Bloomberg.

So again the reason I am making this video is I know that there are some that immediately say “well what about our country?” whatever that country may be. “Could we see a “travel bubble”?” or “Could there be travel bubbles in Southeast Asia rather soon?” let's everybody just back up for a second. We have seen this “travel bubble” discussion come up and then it has been deflated. It has come up and it has gone away almost just quickly as it has come up. I would also make note of the fact that they are again quoting the Tourism Minister, the Tourism Minister of Thailand and I want to be clear. I made a video specifically on this topic talking about the difference between Tourism Officials and Immigration Officials and while they are both very important, it should be noted that ultimately it is Thai Immigration and presumably the Public Health Ministry will weigh in as well, that are going to make the final decisions with respect to any Immigration protocols associated with entry to Thailand. So I would say that although this information provided is rather compelling I do not think it is dispositive nor do I think it should be viewed as the end-all be-all with respect to what is going to happen with respect to any type of travel corridor between Thailand and China in the forthcoming or relatively near future. That is to say it also may end up being the case but until such time as we see announcements specifically from Thai Immigration, CAAT, Ministry of Foreign Affairs that say “Hey a new sort of situation or a new infrastructure has been created for specifically allowing folks from any given country to come in quarantine free”, I think it is safe to presume that the situation is going to remain as it is at least for the foreseeable future.