Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing yet again the so-called Tourist Tax. Man, if there is a headline or meme that is floating through the ether of the press as well as the ether of the bureaucracy which pertains to tourism in Thailand that I wish would die, it is this notion of a Tourist Tax. I think this is a bad idea across the board. I think Thailand needs to encourage as much tourism as it can and it needs to find another way of garnering tax revenue than just directly quite honestly "taxing the goose that lays the golden eggs" in the form of Tourism. 

Now as I have talked about in other videos, especially going back into COVID when we saw the decimation and I mean literal decimation of the Thai Tourism sector and we posted the numbers at the time, tourism went from somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 to 21% of Thailand's excuse me 18 to 20% of GDP down to about 1.8% if I remember correctly, and I believe those numbers were at the beginning of 2022, maybe 2021. So the throws of COVID resulted in the tourism sector effectively being 90% wiped out for a period of time.

So in my opinion, sitting here in 2023 going into arguably the first unfettered high season we have had in some four years now, I don't really see that it is good public policy to even be talking about a Tourism Tax publicly for the moment. I understand that some tax may need to be levied down the line but how it is sort of framed as a Tourist Tax, also how it is framed as a Tourist Tax in my mind the optics are not good to say the least. I also think we can find better ways of generating tax revenue than this route; I think this route is a bad idea to begin with. Another thing to bear in mind for viewers of this video, this hasn't come into effect. ln fact, we have been talking about this for a couple of years now and it has never been implemented in the time we have talked about it. Now it may be implemented now, I am hoping it won't be but we may see it, we may not. I am kind of hoping it continues to just sort of sit out there in the ether without being implemented because I think honestly it will cause more problems than any benefits accrued. 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that's thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Tourism fee fund to be fast tracked after payouts to families in the Siam Paragon mass shooting. And I don't really understand why the tourism fund has anything to do with this although okay some tourist perished in that unfortunate event, not unfortunate, it was tragic; that is very, very sad and then Thailand used funds that were apparently on hand from collecting prior fees associated with entrance to Thailand. As we talked about, there was a tax added some years ago, I think a surcharge associated with traveling inbound to Thailand. That said, notwithstanding this tragedy and tragic it is and it is good to see that some remuneration was paid out via this fund that was sitting there. I urge those who are watching this video go check out Thai Examiner, read that article in detail, you get the details of what's going on in that. 

But long story short, again Tourism Tax just generally I think is a bad idea, there are other ways to go about this. Also coming off of 3 years where the economy was just shut down, I think the Government needs to take a back burner on all of this tax craziness and just let the economy get back on its feet more than anything, rather than running around just trying to tax everything in sight. That said, quoting directly again thaiexaminer.com, "New foreign tourism levy to be paid on arrival at kiosks at Immigration Bureau points of entry including at airports after landing. The fee will also be delivered via website or smartphone app, said the Ministry of Tourism and Sports in the latest update on a proposal that has been up in the air for decades but has yet to be implemented by successive Thai Governments." I think that says it all and I hope it continues to yet to be implemented because again as previously stated, I don't think this is a good policy move. That said, they are talking about it again. I hope they are not using this tragedy as a pretext to try and bring this in. Again, I think it is a bad move generally; I think there are other places sort of in the economic sort of stream if you will, downstream, upstream, however you want to look at it, there are better places to seek to raise tax revenue rather than on tourism directly because one, it looks bad, the optics of it do not look good to prospective tourists and secondly, again there are other places to go. Tourism has been the worst effected sector of the Thai economy as the result of the government's decision to shut everything down and now the government is turning around and saying we need more tax from that sector? It seems to me like that is not how things should but that being said, we will keep you updated on this topic as the situation evolves.