Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we're talking about the digitization of Thai Immigration. Before I get into the quote, I've had people kind of say various things but I'm doing what I'm doing here and I'm doing longer form content through our paid Integrity News Service. Anybody who is interested in longer form content, each of the videos thus far has been over 30 minutes long, some of them quite a bit longer. We have currently five videos, five episodes already made. If you are interested in longer form content that does deeper dives into what is going on with regard to expat Thailand, immigration, the politics, economics, how that all interplays for an expat here, go ahead and email us, [email protected]. Also real quick, we've opened a new restaurant here in downtown Bangkok for those who are interested in American diner food. We've got buffalo wings, we've got cheeseburgers, we've got chilli bowls and of course it is called Pancake Palace, so all day breakfast and pancakes anytime. For those who are interested in Pancake Palace I'll put a link in the description below to the location. 

Now I thought of making this video regarding the digitization of Thai Immigration killing Tourism after reading a recent comment on our channel. Quoting directly: "Retired firefighter from the USA. Would spend 5 months over in Thailand every year for the past 23 years. Then everything changed after COVID. New visa rules, border closing, everything done on the internet" - that's key, I'll get to that in moment - "border runs uncertain, can't plan too far ahead because not sure the rules will be changed from the previous year. Wasn't a Cheap Charlie. Have a condo, bought several motorcycles, eat at nice restaurants, stay in nice hotels when we travel around the north. Getting to be too much of a hassle just to get there now. You would think I would be in their computer system by now and cut me a little slack when I apply for Tourist Visas but no, every year more questions. Just make it less of a hassle, that is all I ask." 

Yeah, look I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who was an "old hand" if you will over in Cambodia and he spent decades over in Cambodia, now moved back to the US, and he was telling me, he said, "the one thing I can't stand is it's like" and I was saying this too, "it's like the system has become Sovietized through this digitization”. And there is no accountability anymore; you can't talk to real people. You can only interface with the digital platforms." Now we deal with this a lot and we actually have a lot of clients that basically hire us to assist them in dealing with the digital platform, especially older guys. I really feel bad for especially retirees that ever have to deal with anything involving an "e-visa", or anything of this nature, because I get it, it is like something out of the Soviet era, there is no other word for it. Weirdly, in the 17 years I have been here - I haven't really paid close attention - but every now and then I would hear something about like things you had to go through to deal with Russian Immigration or coming to Thailand from Russia or whatever, dealing with things, protocols in their internal system. It's like things have gotten more streamlined and better for the Russians, and meanwhile I see this in the US Immigration System, the digitization of all the protocols at the National Visa Center, it has just gotten worse. All the digitization, another great example is American Citizen Services down at the Embassy used to have a first come first serve protocol where you can just go down there, take a number, wait your turn in line, tell them what you needed, do it, pay your fee, get out of there. 

Now I've said before and I'll say it again, you couldn’t pay me enough money to work in American Citizen Services. I remember talking to two guys down there I got to know quite well between roughly about 2009 to 2013, probably '12 -  they would have rotated out of there - but these 2 younger guys that were Department of State employees, I was working a lot doing local filings at USCIS and I was down there watching, and that is a hard job when it is first come first serve, I get that and I see the desire on the part of these bureaucrats be they Thai, be they in America, to digitize all of this so you don't have to deal with people basically. I think that is what a lot of it comes down to. Just nobody wants to be accountable; nobody wants to look somebody in the eye and say "hey we are not going to give you that document" or "hey you can't have this" or try to work through a set of extenuating circumstances. That is the worst part of the digitization of all immigration systems is there is no mechanism for odd or unique circumstances. It's just constant, "oh no" or "you can't get this screen" or "you need this number from this database, from this online system to move over to this system and that thing won't give you that so you can't have that." It's just a feedback loop of Catch 22 snafus and again none of it is good. 

The US system is what it is; I've done the videos on this before. I don't even know that policy makers in the US even care about tourism. But here in Thailand, especially as we are moving closer to what's probably going to be I think not a great high season due to massive policy changes on Cannabis, the overall attitude towards tourists, tax policy which is scaring off a ton of perpetual, what I call perpetual expats or long-term tourists, coupled with the fact that now they have digitized the Immigration System to the hilt; we discussed in the past that Anutin and the Interior Ministry going back to roughly the first quarter of this year basically pushed back against the move to sort of have this more digitized arrival/departure system that seems to want to interact with the tax system so they can count every minute you have been in Thailand and then I guess assess you for taxes when you come and go through here. All of this augers bad for tourism numbers. People get tired of all the hassles; they get tired of dealing with all of the nit-picketty bureaucratic Byzantine nonsense and the upshot is they basically throw up their hands and say, "you know what? I'm just not going to spend my money in Thailand."