Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing retirees here in Thailand. I am just making this video to just throw out some observations that I have made about the demography of what we are looking at in Thailand presently.  

Obviously, and this is February, 2021, Tourism is not where we would otherwise like it to be. In terms of the general population in Thailand it is probably as low as it has ever been and I hope will ever be. That said, an observation, something that brought a notion to the forefront of my mind is that just demographically, the boomer generation is primarily retiring in the United States. A lot more retirees in Europe as well. Retirees may end up being the cornerstone of the future of the expat ecosystem if you want to call it that for Thailand. Retirees may be the folks that end up, and I know this seems like pontificating on the obvious, there have always been a lot of retirees in Thailand. More my point is it is not so much that there have always been retirees in Thailand, yes they are here. That is why the Retirement Visa exists. There are large number of them here in fact. It is more the fact that the younger folks, call them tourists, long stay tourists whatever you want to call them, they are definitely down in substantial numbers.

For this reason, perhaps a reassessment of how retirees are treated in Thailand not only at a bureaucratic level but just at a policy level because it is my opinion just having watched things the last roughly eight months, retirees are really you know what slack and there is a lot of slack to be picked up, but what slack is being picked up in terms of the economy that pertained to tourism prior to March 2020, that slack is being picked up a lot by retirees primarily or at least Retirement Visa holders. Now whatever they are doing, they may not spend their whole time here but they are spending a great deal of money here and it is noteworthy and something that I think is worth pointing out that maybe the future of the expat, again ecosystem here, is going to revolve more heavily around retirees than really any other age demography at least for the foreseeable future.