Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Tourism in Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the print edition of Bangkok Post, so print edition Bangkok Post. I'll put this on screen. Phuket enjoys surprise off-season arrivals hike. Quoting directly: "Phuket is seeing a big shift in tourism patterns as European travellers embrace off-season travel with tourism revenue expected to grow by over 40 billion baht, or around 10% this year, says the Phuket Tourist Association. Tourists from the UK, Germany and France have shown rising interest in visiting Phuket during the green season, a period traditionally regarded as off-peak months, said Thanet Tantipiriyakit, President of the Association." 

So okay, that whole "green" season, we did a video on that I think a year ago now. Wow, time flies, maybe, I think it was a year ago, where we were talking about how high season last year was not, excuse me, low season last year was not nearly as low as the low seasons traditionally have been because people were being drawn into "green" season, i.e. they were coming here because of Thailand's Cannabis Policy. And what I am hopeful of is that this year when we are sitting in this almost perfect storm of a low season, that authorities here in Thailand, especially those associated with tourism, will maybe have a look at what these currently arbitrary and capricious changing rules and I think apropos of lack of actual legal underpinning, but this changing paradigm within the Ministry of Public Health, whatever you want to call that, regarding Cannabis implies, are we going to lose this green season, if Thailand changes up its Cannabis policies and becomes a place where people can't partake of this? How is that going to result on tourism here? Is it going to cause a downturn in that? I have discussed in other videos that I think and frankly I have been walking around downtown Bangkok recently, it's looking to me like it is already having an impact on the commercial real estate sector, especially in the retail sector, because people are already closing up shops. I've talked to a few people that said they are concerned about these policy shifts. I've also talked to people that said they are taking legal action with regard to these things which remains to be seen on that, and I will be updating people on this channel with regard to that. 

That being said, I mean at the end of the day, the green season, the term came about because people were coming here because there was a new option in Thailand that basically exists nowhere else in Asia, Southeast or otherwise. Thailand had what I called at the time, comparative advantage and first mover advantage with regard to having Cannabis as an option for tourists. And here we are under this current Government, let's be clear who it is - the Core Coalition party so-called, this Rump Coalition - that has just arbitrarily and capriciously decided to start messing with all of these businesses and in many cases seems to have the intention of destroying almost 16,000 perfectly legitimate businesses some 2 weeks ago, and just saying, "oh well, we don't care about that, we're just doing this, because we say so by the way!", and that is what we are stuck with him. My question is, "hey, tourism operators, maybe you might want to look at your counterparts if you will over in the Cannabis Sector, because the negative implications for them could rebound back on you, maybe even as soon as this coming high season where we don't see as many arrivals because the people, there was a subset clearly of folks that were coming to Thailand to partake in Cannabis and here they are unable to do so." 

So the thing to take away from this video is first of all, we need to promote tourism in Thailand, but secondly, maintaining rule of law and not engaging in these arbitrary and capricious changes to Cannabis Law and Policy would be a good idea, but what are going to be the economic ramifications in the tourism sector of these drastic changes?