Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing whether or not the recently discussed - and I've been discussing this for a few weeks now - the sort of anti-nominee, anti-proxy push here in Thailand, is that impacting tourism, or inbound travel might be the better term. 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Tourism statistics and enhanced corporate oversight reflect Thailand's tourism landscape and benefits in May 2026. Quoting directly: "According to recent data from the Ministry of Tourism and Sports covering January 1 to May 24 2026, Thailand welcomed over 13.4 million foreign arrivals." Well that in and of itself, that's not even quite the full first half of the year and we still got 13.4 million foreign arrivals. That's pretty heavy stuff. That said, quoting further: "The top five nationalities visiting the country are ranked below:

Rank 1 China with 2,237,215 arrivals 

Rank 2 Malaysia with 1,552,217 arrivals 

Rank 3 India with 1,003,993 arrivals 

Rank 4 Russia with 928,774 arrivals 

Rank 5 South Korea with 525,550 arrivals 

Quoting further: "The cumulative figures indicate that despite heavy scrutiny on hidden foreign capital, travel demand for Thailand from its primary markets remains strong and did not experience a sharp decline as many had feared." 

Yeah, I never really understood the argument that this push against these nominees structures and some of this illegal activity in Thailand was going to have an overwhelmingly detrimental impact on tourism, because frankly it is sort of the same thing as I have kind of questioned the whole Visa exemptions viewed as the sort of gateway to people operating illegally, when in reality that Visa doesn't provide enough time to do that. Long story short, most of the people that use the Visa Exemption are genuine tourists and quite frankly, most tourists are not interested in coming to Thailand and setting up some sort of bogus front company to do anything. They are basically here to go to the beaches, check out the markets, have fun in the night life and then go home. That is what the vast majority of people that travel to Thailand I think want to do. 

So I never really bought the logic that "oh my gosh, if we go after this stuff, we're going to horribly, detrimentally impact tourism." I never really thought that would be the case. Clearly it is turning out that no, in fact it is not really the case. That being said, I expect other factors moving forward may have an impact on tourism most notably energy prices and then all the concomitant prices going up as a result of that; sort of a knock-on effect if you will. 

So while I do think we may see a more rocky tourism year throughout 2026, and hopefully it improves going into high season going into 2027, I don't think it can be safely said that this can be attributed to Thailand's push toward rousting out if you will, or ascertaining whether or not there are nominees who are helping people operate illegally here in the Kingdom of Thailand.