Transcript of the above video: 

We have been talking a lot about banking news, tax news here in Thailand, and how that all kind of impacts expats. Been talking a fair bit about, oh, even the political situation and developments with regards to that. So I thought we would kind of circle back to more pertinent stuff regarding Immigration. There have been some developments with regard to that. 

Before I get into that, those who are interested, I do get into deeper dives regarding expat issues, expat news, how different developments may play upon the expat community, different thoughts, tactics, possible strategies for maintaining oneself and living out here in Southeast Asia with an emphasis on living in Thailand. If you are interested in that, you can go to our paid news service or check out our paid news service I should say, get on the mailing list for that by emailing us at [email protected], and we can get you on the mailing list. There are already 10 episodes. Each one is a minimum of a half hour. I've done some really long ones; recently I did one over an hour, I think it was almost 1 hour and 20 minutes long, so a lot of good insights on there if you want to do deep dives into what is going on out here. Also, while I'm talking my book, my better half and I have set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok, if you're interested in American style breakfast. We also have English breakfast, the big English breakfast if you are interested in that, but breakfast anytime. Pancake Palace. As the name implies, we have pancakes anytime as well. We have also got great American Diner style food including buffalo wings and fried chicken wings generally - not just buffalo wings. Also we've got cheeseburgers, hamburgers, chilli bowls, pork chops, we've got glass bottled Coke, so if you are interested in American Diner style food, check us out. The link is in the description below to come on by Pancake Palace.

Getting into this though, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Immigration expands fast lanes at Thai Airports as student tourism picks up. Yeah, first off you should probably check out the article itself for this because the thrust of that article goes that direction, talking about how they are fast tracking students, sort of student "tourists", student "travellers". Thailand, I think this is actually a good policy and they are quietly doing this. I often notice the best policies in Thailand are kind of quietly rolled out. Meanwhile, it seems like the more loud folks that come out with these grandiose plans that never quite seem to work, the volume tends to sort of denote whether or not it is going to be a great program. I think this is a good idea, much like Medical Tourism, the notion of Education Tourism here in Thailand. Thailand is a hub for international schools, students of all types, all the way up into universities. Look Thailand has some great universities too; I mean world-class level universities. I think it is a good idea to fast track that kind of Immigration into Thailand and I think that can create a positive feedback loop, whereby foreigners contribute in the pedagogical environment and then the universities then turn around and put out good people that can live and work here or it also helps benefit Thais in general, because an improvement to the overall education system in Thailand improves the education system of Thailand as a whole. 

That said, quoting directly: "Despite efforts to boost tourism during the low season, Pol Maj Gen Choengron emphasized that border security remains the top priority." and this is kind of the thrust of this video, not really talking about the Education Tourism but the fact that again stringent border controls continue to be the order of the day within the paradigm of Thai Immigration. Quoting further: "Since January, more than 10,000 foreign nationals have been denied entry due to concerns over illegal activities or links to so-called "grey" groups." Quoting further: The fast lane initiative, he stressed, aimed at supporting genuine tourism while maintaining strict screening protocols." So again, the thing to kind of remember, if you go back a few years ago, they had the so-called "good guys in, bad guys out" regime. Again, that has not really left the paradigm of Immigration. They view themselves, as I have discussed in the past, they view themselves in my opinion much more as an administrative apparatus. These days, it is very much a law enforcement mentality; understand, they are not messing around. Folks that they think are going to engage in illicit activity here in Thailand, they are going to screen heavily and may deny entry to. So something to think about for travellers looking to come and travel to the Kingdom of Thailand.