Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing tourism into Thailand. I am not really making this video, I have had people tell me that I am getting morose if you will or maybe even a little bit almost cynical regarding the prospects for Tourism in Thailand generally. That is not the purpose of these videos. It is more to just gauge what the sentiment is and I would say it is also for the purpose, almost keeping a record of where we stand at the moment so that hopefully as policies change, we can look back in retrospect and maybe we will see where things shifted; that is at least my purpose for it. Also perhaps constructive criticism, although I don't really think anybody at a policy level really watches these videos, but constructive criticism in my opinion can be rather useful. So again maybe that is also an underlying purpose of this video.

Two recent comments that came on to our YouTube channel, the first one is: "I just booked two months in Cabo, Mexico. Thank you Thailand." Another one is: "Are you freaking kidding me Benjamin??? The Thai government did this 100%. They are absolutely, positively 100% to blame. I would have gladly gone to Thailand if they hadn't made it a hassle or impossible to do so. So would have millions of others. Whether it was a reasonable course of action is debatable. I would argue it wasn't but it is undeniable that the actions taken by the Thai Government caused the loss of Tourism." One person's opinion. I would say kind of difficult to lay all the blame for this on the Thai Government.  Again, we did a video about proximate cause and we talked about folks that are unwittingly in the transmission chain of this thing. To lay blame on them for transmitting it further is kind of difficult; the proximate cause of the virus is the virus itself. One could arguably, I don't know if you could say that the proximate cause of the decline in tourism is entirely the virus's fault. Certainly the response to COVID has been a key factor, especially some of the Immigration protocols that have been brought into play, quarantine protocols etc.

Long story short, I think the thing to take away from this video is yeah there have been problems that have been caused by this. Certain Government responses I think have been actually pretty good. I think they acted with a lot of alacrity at certain parts, certain times. I think they acted with a lot of forbearance at certain times. I don't think it is really all that fair to blame anybody for this at the end of the day. It just is what it is and we are all trying to just in a sense react to it. Now could things have been done better with respect to this policy and that policy? Maybe. Government is a large organism if you will. It is not unlike a virus in the sense that there are a lot of different entities involved in one swarm and trying to blame IT for anything is kind of difficult. The people in it, especially policy makers, yeah maybe there is some blame to be laid but any specific person, I would be hard-pressed to find them.

As far as Immigration goes, just strictly Immigration, really they have acted pretty professionally throughout this. I mean quarantine protocols pertain to Public Health Policy. Immigration protocols, if you have a Business Visa for example you can still enter Thailand for business purposes. You have to undergo certain Public Health initiatives to do so but that is not really Immigration Policy, that is more Public Health Policy and maybe there is room for some criticism there. I suspect it is probably not the time or place to do that until a few more weeks down the road when people can have a look at how this all transpired but hopefully we will be discussing this in videos ahead and we will certainly keep you updated on these topics as the situation progresses.