Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are asking it is now 450 they're talking about for possible Tourism Fees in Thailand? This whole notion of a Tourism Fee, a Tourism Tax, whatever, I really kind of wish they would just move on from this, because every time we talk about it, it doesn't really look good for the Thai Tourism Industry. On top of that, this 300 Baht which was what it was talked about in the past, and now I'll get to the citations where they're talking about it now, it's going to be 450, I know the way bureaucrats and government folks think. They see all these tourists and these people coming in, they're going "oh my gosh, we get 300 Baht or 450 Baht per person; that will add up to X amount - a big old pile of money - and we can do XYZ with it."

Well one) I don't love it when bureaucrats have a whole pile of money to go out and live their dream of whatever bureaucracy it is they want to create to further annoy most people that just want to interact, transact, come to Thailand and just be at tourist. Again it puts off tourists - just the thought of it - and I think that Thailand would probably make more money just letting people come in, letting them interact with our economy here and then picking up that money "on the back end" to use sort of Hollywood parlance, in the form of if nothing else the 7% of the VAT, which people will sit there and say "well the VAT can be refunded" etc., etc. Well yeah in theory it can and there are folks that do that, but many of the people, especially coming from the West, don't tend to avail themselves of that. Then on top of that, it's not the easiest thing in the world to get a VAT refund. Beyond even that, what's the problem with having that money just moving around the economy. I'd much rather have it in the hands of the private sector than again sitting around in a big pile so that a bunch of bureaucrats can figure out more ways to mess with the Tourism Sector than already exist. 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Suspension of TM6 form for travellers extended. Quoting directly: "The Ministry of Tourism and Sports meanwhile is exploring integrating the collection of the 300 Baht and 150 Baht Tourism Fees into the ETA system." Now for those who are unaware, that is the Electronic Travel Authorization which I've talked about at length in other videos. Overall, I think this is a very bad idea; I think it's going to have a very negative impact on the Thai economy. Then on top of it, when did we go from 300 up to 450? When did they add on this other 150 now? Where did that come from? So, it's gone up 50% hypothetically, just this past year? I mean every time they have always talked about this in the past, it was 300 Baht. 

Again, I think Thai Authorities, officials, whatever, need to seriously reconsider both the Electronic Travel Authorization as well as the notion of this Tourism Fee if for no other reason than the optics for the Tourism Sector here in the Kingdom of Thailand.