Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether cross-border travel could be returning in Thailand sometime in the relatively foreseeable future.

The reason I brought this up is there is a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Thailand Seeks Reopening of More Checkpoints to Boost Cross-border Trade. To be clear, we sort of saw things shut down. The week that they shut down the land borders was a weird week. I remember we were dealing with a lot of clients and nobody really knew what was going on and a lot of people, while the borders were still open it was like, I remember telling people on the phone, "you are on a multi-entry Visa, you have got two weeks left on it. Probably you want to get to the border and get back in so that you can get back another 90 days until we know how to deal with this." That happened a lot. The Border shut in phases as I recall. There were different checkpoints that started shutting down and then there was a period of time where there was some cross border activity going on mostly in terms of trade. There was certain folks given an exemption where they could go over the borders for trade purposes. That seems to have diminished a lot either due to regulation or just due to demand, I am not sure, although I think it is more regulation. 

This article again from pattayamail.com, Thailand Seeks Reopening of More Checkpoints to Boost Cross-border Trade. Quoting directly: "Thailand's Government has pledged to accelerate talks with neighboring countries to re-open as many border checkpoints as possible to boost cross-border trade following robust growth during the first seven months." Quoting further: "According to Commerce Minister Jurin Laksanavisit, the Foreign Trade Department is teaming up with the private sector and the Governors of Border provinces including Chiang Rai, Loey, Nong Khai and Nakorn Panom and Mukdahan to continue with negotiations in neighboring countries."

So, it looks like this is being done primarily from a trade standpoint but I definitely think it is a good sign with respect to overall opening of Border checkpoints in a broader sense because this is kind of how it shut down. It is like they say with layoffs, “last in, first out”. Then when they hire people back, it is people that got laid off in order, they reverse hire them back. We got shut down in these phases. Trade was the last to go and now they are talking about reopening. I definitely think it is a good sign that we may be seeing things thawing out for lack of a better term along the borders here in the Kingdom of Thailand.