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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thailand sort of to being replaced if you will by Vietnam as a travel hub. Huh? I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Thai Examiner, that is thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Thailand faces an uphill struggle to become the aviation hub it once was before the pandemic era. So a little bit of background here. It appears the Prime Minister seems to have a plan if you will, to make Thailand sort of the aviation hub of Southeast Asia, I would argue it already is and we just need to continue on this good path but okay, I always like it that new Governments especially have to repackage things as like a new idea, a new initiative. Now to my mind, just to look at aviation infrastructure in Thailand versus well any place else in Southeast Asia and I think it is very, very clear that yeah Thailand already is an aviation hub. But more to the point is the notion of sort of a travel hub generally and I am going to get into the article but I have constantly seen, since I have lived in Thailand this ongoing narrative I guess if you will that like Vietnam is somehow going to overtake Thailand, or Vietnam is the new kid on the block in terms of economics, or whatever. 

So first off, why do we have to keep creating these narratives where it is all this, I don't know if dialectic is the right word but it is this like ‘us versus them’. These aren't zero-sum games. At the end of the day, Vietnam's economy improving does not mean Thailand should be upset with herself for not doing better. I mean it's not even a correct comparison really. At the end of the day, in many ways comparing Thailand's economy to Vietnam's economy is like comparing apples and bowling balls; they are not the same thing. It also in my mind seems to be this kind of exercise if you will, it seems like especially International Financial interests want to create these kind of economic rivalries in order to justify increased Government spending. That seems to be like "oh well, Vietnam is going to get ahead of us if we don't spend millions and millions on this project" or whatever this may be. It all seems a little bit contrived to me is my only point. 

In any event again Thai Examiner, thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: Thailand faces an uphill struggle to become the aviation hub it once was before the pandemic era. Quoting directly: "Thailand's aviation hub dream an ambitious plan for 150 million arrivals or is this pie in the sky? Certainly, PM Srettha's bold vision faces critical hurdles, even to regain its former position. These include Thailand's current downgraded Federal Aviation Administration Category 2 rating," - yeah, I was thinking of this. I recently had to go to the United States to deal with some family issues and when connecting, coming back through to Asia, I was sitting there going "why doesn't Thailand have a direct flight to the United States". Primarily this stems from the fact that this downgrading. I don't know why it was downgraded in the first place is. I sometimes wonder if it was overly warranted to downgrade it in the first place. I would wonder why it hasn't been reassessed at this point. We have seen massive infrastructural improvements to the air infrastructure in Thailand, especially in the past couple of years. Can we not maybe have a review of that and hopefully get Thailand back where I would argue she probably ought to be in terms of this categorization but let's leave that aside - quoting further: "damaged airline industry confidence and Vietnam's rise to assume the role ahead of the Kingdom." Quoting further: "PM Srettha Thavisin, on Friday, announced plans to turn Thailand into a regional Aviation hub. The announcement was made publicly on TV and social media. It certainly should be a strategic aim for Southeast Asia's second largest economy. At the same time, it is appropriate for a country so centrally placed in the region. Indeed previously, Thailand enjoyed such a role." Well that is actually more to the point. Thailand has this already. It is an aviation hub. It is not that it is going to lose that, just other countries may become more sophisticated in the meantime. Well that is probably going to happen, that is kind of the way the world works. Quoting further: "However, a disastrous review by International inspectors in January 2015, significantly damaged the country's aviation prospects in the long term." Yeah I remember when that went down. And first of all I have often wondered was there at least some element of political motivation there because this was the aftermath of the events of 2014 which Thailand was, in an international context looked kind of askance at by certain International establishment players, was there an element of political perhaps motive behind that downgrading. I often wonder. Anyway, quoting further: "Afterwards, this was followed by the 2020 overnight closure of Thai airspace to all carriers." Well yeah, I'll get into that in a minute. Hold on let me finish this quote. "This was something which caused irreparable damage to Thailand's economy. Subsequently, the shambolic handling of access to the country during the virus emergency further damaged relationships with airlines. In short, it eroded confidence. In the meantime, Vietnam in 2019 emerged as the successor to Thailand for the role."

Wow, hold on a minute, let me go through this point by point, so let's start. "Afterwards this was followed by the 2020 overnight closure of Thai air space to all carriers." Now let's take that for what it is. Fair enough, however, and look I was doing the videos in the moment talking about the Covid response okay, so I think I have at least some standing to talk the way I am going to right now. Yes Thailand imposed a true quarantine, they truly did. I have said this before and I'll say it again. Thailand truly imposed a quarantine. Thailand did it begrudgingly. If you go back and look at the record in March of 2020 when they did finally sign the Emergency Decree and bring it online, initially it was supposed to be temporary, that temporariness lasted until 2022. Did we finally have the Emergency Decree lifted in 2022? I think that is right, October of '22 I think it was when it finally was fully lifted. But if you go back nobody wanted to impose quarantine measures. I remember people thinking at the time, myself included, oh man this is going to be devastating for the tourism sector and it didn't seem to warrant it except for the fact that the WHO came in and basically changed their definition of what constituted a pandemic which then triggered international agreements and Internationally created mechanisms which happen promulgated into Thai Law which resulted in certain national response. That national response was a by the book quarantine, unlike a ton of other countries, let's be clear on that. United States didn't do a true quarantine and it seemed really odd because they were letting in planes from places that they said had this thing while at the same time telling everybody to mask up and do all this silly stuff and meanwhile they're letting planes come in from places like China, it was very odd to watch. Thailand didn't do that. Thailand imposed a true quarantine, okay? And I would argue did it only after a tremendous amount of international pressure was put on the country to do it. I think that's another thing to bear in mind is, I remember this happening in March 2020, and nobody was really thrilled to be doing this. They basically, "are you sure we really?" The way I looked at it, it seemed like at the time people were sort of saying "are you sure we really want to do this? I mean this is a major drastic step". Well they did it. Thailand truly zipped up its borders. For a month nobody could get in. Thai nationals included. We did the videos at the time of all of this and we followed it all the way through, the sort of reopening and the limited types of people that could get in at the beginning; only people that had a Work Permit that were foreigners were allowed to even come back in the country other than permanent residents. It was Thai nationals, permanent residents, Work Permit holders. If you recall, retirees couldn't get back in; those who were in Thailand on a family-based visa, an O Visa based on marriage or Thai children or something, they couldn't get in. It was a true quarantine especially for that first month.  Again Thai nationals couldn't even get back into Thailand, okay? This was a true quarantine. So to call out Thailand for their quarantine as being something that has harmed the tourism sector, I don't think it's unfair to do that but let's look at why, and let's look at what they were doing. This wasn't born of irresponsibility and it wasn't born of ineffective or lack of optimal implementation. They did a proper quarantine, other countries didn't. That is another thing to keep in mind. So the way I have said this since it happened, Thailand operated in good faith. They basically said "okay you are calling this a pandemic", again I think that reasonable people disagreed with that assessment even from the outset, but when the consensus was reached at an international level, Thailand said "okay, if this is what you are saying, we'll go along with it" and then they went ahead and implemented a quarantine per their protocols. How can you really find fault with that? If anything, and I have said this before, the fault should be with the people who called it a pandemic to begin with because in my opinion, they effectively changed the definition to get them there. And let's just say it like this. It was a massive overreaction. Yes there was something to it but did it require the Draconian, really Orwellian totalitarian responses that came up as a result of it on an international level? I am not talking about the Thais. The minute the Thais called it a pandemic, they said "hey, this is the protocol, we institute quarantine protocols”, and that is what they did. We knew what that was, and we knew what that would be." It's the International Community that I take great issue with especially the WHO, especially the Head of the WHO, Mr. Tedros, who I have talked about previously on this channel who is an avowed Communist and quite honestly his record before becoming the Head of the WHO in my opinion is questionable. Then meanwhile, like with the Monkey Pox thing where even his own Board did not vote in favour of calling that a pandemic, then he just unilaterally called it a pandemic. Again all this has, if there are issues with anyone I don't think you can find it at the Thai national level. At the Thai national level they basically said, "Okay we're calling this a pandemic", boom fine. You have triggered the mechanism, this is what we're going to do. So again, quoting: "afterwards, this was followed by the 2020 overnight closure of Thai airspace to all carriers." Well yeah, that is what happens in a quarantine. They just imposed a quarantine, that is what happened. Quoting further: "This was something which caused irreparable damage to Thailand's economy." Well okay, fair enough. It also caused irreparable damage to the world economy. And again, where is the blame to be placed? Because again it is not at the Thai national level because the decision to call it a pandemic and then thereby trigger the mechanisms that Thailand does at a national level, that decision occurred at the WHO and only after it's my understanding the actual definition of pandemic was somewhat altered. "Subsequently the shambolic handling of access to the country during the bias of virus emergency, further damage relationships with Airlines. In short it eroded confidence. In the meantime Vietnam in 2019 emerged as the successor to Thailand for the role." Are you kidding? Thailand was the only country in this region that remained open, albeit I will admit it was a lot of hoops you had to go through. We had the "Sandbox" and we had the quarantine protocols but you could get into Thailand and you could get out of Thailand after that first month. Yes the first month was a true quarantine; that was imposed; there was no doubt about that, I went through it. And I'm not defending it exactly either, let me be clear. The whole thing to my mind, I'll just call it a massive over exaggeration, let's just put it that way! Okay? And I'm hoping there's there will be in time some kind of truth and reconciliation commission if nothing else on a global level for how we dealt with this thing. 

That said, "at the national level the handling of it was shambolic." What are you talking about? Vietnam wasn't even open! Meanwhile, I did the reports on this at the time, Vietnam was actually kicking people out; they weren't extending people's visas in the country during that period. Thailand, now okay getting into Thailand was something of a wow, yeah it was a Byzantine process to say the least. We did the videos at the time: Certificates of Entry, all the documentation, but you could get in. Let's be clear, you could have access to the country, that's a big difference. The other thing is, once you were here, or the people that got stuck here, part of the Emergency Decree created an extra level of discretion on the part of Immigration Officers to be able to allow Extension of Status here in the country, all during the Emergency Decree. So actually, Thai lawmakers, I should say policy makers at the time, implemented something that actually gave a certain amount of relief to people who got essentially trapped if you will by the pandemic. From my observation, I wasn't over in Vietnam, but we did do the videos at the time, in the moment - you can go back and check my record on this - we discussed the fact that Vietnam was telling people, "you have got to go, you've got to leave. We are not going to extend your Visa further", that was happening. I didn't see that happen in Thailand. So to call Thailand's response 'shambolic', I don't think that's fair and to say that 'Vietnam became the successor in 2019', what? First of all that doesn't even make any sense to me, in 2019. 2019 as I recall, 2018 and 2019 were both banner years in terms of tourism into Thailand. Now I won't disagree with the notion that yes more and more Vietnam is rising as a destination here in Southeast Asia; more and more people want to go over and see that but most people that end up coming over here and go to Vietnam end up going to Thailand too often times. So again, this framing of everything as a zero-sum game where something that benefits Vietnam is to Thailand's detriment, that is not even correct analysis. In any event, again I fail to see where Vietnam was the big good guy or something compared to Thailand in terms of pandemic response especially from a Visa context because again as we have discussed, Thailand had a regime here in place that at least accommodated folks who were put out by the pandemic. Again we did the videos at the time, Vietnam was telling people to leave, they weren't giving people extensions in the same way that were given here in Thailand. 

So the thing to take away from this video in my opinion is first of all it is not a zero-sum game, there is not going to be the tourism overlord paramount or whatever in Southeast Asia and they are going to get kicked off of their hill by somebody else, no that's not what is going to work. At the end of the day, Thailand is going to remain a major tourism destination, it is going to remain a major aviation hub and I stress the word "remain". It already is this thing. You could make an argument that Vietnam is on the way to becoming either or both of those things, Thailand already is that, so all it has to do is just remain that and I don't see any reason to think it won't. If anything I think Thailand is uniquely situated in this region to not only continue to be the major aviation and tourism hub but very likely to grow in that regard moving forward.