Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are positing on the notion of "will we ever see an end to the Thailand Pass or PCR Testing?" This is kind of one of those moments when I would urge folks to maybe have a look and remember that “normalcy bias” is a real thing where you get used to something and you just kind of think it will go on forever. Well we saw the inverse of this back in the beginning of 2020 when people kind of said "well you know, Immigration is just going to tick along; policy is not really going to change” and then Wham it changed massively. Massive lockdown; very difficult to get into Thailand to the point of impossible and then it slowly eased back. Now we are kind of used to what was called the Certificate of Entry, what is being called now the Thailand Pass, although I don't really see a huge difference between the two and all this PCR testing and all of these different obstacles that frankly at this point I really question the need for, leaving that aside but will we ever seen an end to this?

I got to thinking about this when reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Call to scrap PCR tests, Thailand Pass. Quoting directly: "Hoteliers want to scrap the RT-PCR Testing requirement along with the Thailand Pass, "now I thought this was interesting. I don't know why they thought this but, "because the Russian invasion of Ukraine has darkened the tourism outlook to such an extent that the Industry might attract only 10% of the pre-pandemic arrival numbers." Well look Russia and Ukraine have a lot of issues and I will be the first one to admit that. It is having ripple effects, ramifications around the world. Shutting down the economy of Thailand and the ability to enter Thailand for 2 years probably "darkened the tourism outlook" to quote from this article, more than anything that is going on in Russia or the Ukraine.

To the best of my understanding during the Balkans wars or the Iraq war posed by the United States, there wasn’t the massive darkening of the tourism outlook in Thailand. I don't mean to laugh but I just think it is kind of an odd notion that that alone "darkened" the tourism outlook. No, I think it is the two years of all of these, in my opinion, really over the top restrictions that have had a massive negative impact on tourism. Now sure will the current conflict register in people's minds as far as making travel arrangements? I suspect it will, but more than anything, not having to deal with PCR Testing and the Thailand Pass system would probably do more to improve tourism than anything else going on around the world presently.