Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether or not the recent expansion of Thailand's Visa Exemption Program has been sort of worth it if you will; if the benefits are outweighing the possible costs, and it sort of remains to be seen. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article in the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Impact of Visa exemption expected to be delayed. Now I think this is interesting. To start with we are talking about specifically the expansion of the Visa Exemption Program to Chinese nationals specifically from the mainland as you can see in this video. I urge, as with all of the stuff that we cite in these videos, go check out that article for yourself but this was sort of touted as "oh this is something that is going to immediately sort of benefit" and at that time I kind of said well it's going to take a minute; it never happens overnight. But that said, overall I thought at the time it was a good initiative. I am a believer that more Visa Exemption means more tourists. That said there is some debate there. With that in mind, going ahead and quoting from this article, quoting directly: "Even with a permanent visa-free policy between Thailand and China, air ticket prices are not expected to immediately surge as demand will pick up gradually, while seat capacity is yet to fully recover. Hotels also don't expect large tour groups to flock to Thailand as in the past. China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin on Monday as part of a 4-day official visit, during which the permanent visa-free pact between China and Thailand was concluded.

Wutthiphum Jurangkool, chief executive of Nok Air, said after the Thai Government announced earlier this month the permanent Visa Exemption from March 1, there has not been a spike in bookings as Thai tourists waited for a clear announcement from Beijing." So there is sort of a two-way street to this whole thing. It seems that there are a number of Thais who are looking at this whole thing mostly from the Thailand side looking to get Visa-free entry into China and folks kind of forget that, that Thais don't have that or up to now haven't really had that ability. There currently; I believe the Thai passport can get you into Japan for 15 days, I believe it is the same with Korea. As we have discussed in other videos the new Prime Minister has made it a key point of his new Administration to go ahead and try to improve the "strength" of the Thai passport and I think that is very laudable. Again as I have noted in other videos as a Thai myself, adding the ability to go to places Visa-free is a significant benefit and I think it's something to look at. Now that said, should it be the end all be all in terms of policy? I don't know if that is necessarily a good thing. 

Now the other thing to note in this video is there are a lot of concerns or I should say in this article and again I urge those to watch it, excuse me to read it and there are other concerns noted in their most notably that folks are going to use this to come in and operate illegally in Thailand. As Thai Immigration pointed out, look we have protocols in place to go ahead and forestall that or at least mitigate it. I think that is a pretty fair point. Thai Immigration, especially through digitization and a lot of their new protocols, has the ability to pretty readily see who is here in Thailand improperly, inappropriately or illegally and whether or not they are perhaps operating, working for example here in Thailand illegally. 

That said, again notwithstanding the fact that this is pretty major news in terms of Thai Immigration, as noted in the article, it is probably not going to have a huge impact in the immediate term. Meanwhile and something else to keep in mind, China seems to be having their own economic difficulties just in and of themselves. For this reason I don't think it is likely we are going to see large influxes of Chinese tourists into Thailand any time in the relatively near future.