Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the possibility of the Thailand Pass ending. I got to thinking about that when I was reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Unpopular Thailand Pass Entry Rules may End. Yeah, “unpopular”, I would say is an understatement. People are not real keen to be doing this Thailand Pass thing and I think it is having a detrimental impact on tourism generally, just overall numbers. 

Quoting directly: "Travel Agents say pre-registration on government websites is the biggest drawbacks to a tourist revival in Thailand but the long distance market is being badly hit by the deteriorating International political situation. The Thai Authorities will likely concentrate on short-haul visitors especially from India with "travel bubbles" already on the cards. However, the collapse of Thailand Pass, if it happens, will be welcomed by long haul fans of Thailand from Britain, mainland Europe, Australia and beyond. Thailand is hoping to reach a 626 billion Baht inflow this year from International tourists. Without significant Immigration let ups, that simply can't happen."

Yeah, I have got to agree with this article. I have got to say without getting rid of Thailand Pass I think again those long haulers are going to be tough to rope in. Yeah, there are a lot of people that love Thailand especially retirees, prospective expats, but as far as first time tourists and remember first time tourists sort of feed prospective retirees and prospective long time expats so in my opinion, I think it would be a good idea to go ahead and get rid of this Thailand Pass system. I have been saying this for quite a while now. I didn't love it when we were dealing with it as the Certificate of Entry System and to me it looks like we are going to be dealing with Thailand Pass System at least into the relatively foreseeable future but hopefully not that much further. There is talk that the whole thing is going to be considered endemic and concomitant with that, we are looking at a situation where the overall regime if you will, the protocols associated with this come to an end. Hopefully that happens sooner rather than later.