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Should Thai Tourism Organizations Be Viewed as Experts on Immigration?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Tourism Authorities in Thailand. By authorities I simply mean folks who spend a lot of time dealing with tourism and it could even be Government Ministries because there is a Ministry of Tourism here in Thailand but we are talking about anyone who deals directly with tourism and then those kind of folks discussing Thai Immigration. I am not going to name names or do anything like that. The point of this video is I have seen a lot of information be misconstrued and misunderstood during the past few months and part of this is because people aren't really looking at the sources of the information that they are analyzing or at least I should say they are not taking into consideration the source from whence the information comes, especially in an Immigration context. 

What I am trying to say here is you need to be aware who is saying what with respect to Thai Immigration. If it is an Immigration Officer, that is one thing and certainly I think that carries a lot of weight. If it is a direct announcement of Immigration policy from the Immigration apparatus that is also a major thing to take into consideration; or a statement being made by a spokesperson for Thai Immigration generally; or the Head of Thai Immigration, the Chief of the Immigration Bureau here in Thailand, that is that someone who you should put a lot of weight behind. 

Meanwhile, there are folks that operate within certain tourism authorities here in Thailand and there are various ones, there is not only one Authority I am pointing out to because there has been a lot going on here. Some of these are organizations of businesses that are in the tourism field. Sometimes we are simply talking about a few private companies that deal with tourism related matters and you will see them making statements about the future of possible Thai Immigration developments etc. You need to view those for what they are in my opinion. Yes, they can have a lot of weight. I mean for example in a government context, yes when the Minister of Tourism makes comments regarding Thai tourism, yes I am going to definitely give that a great deal of consideration when trying to formulate my thoughts on where things are going with respect to both tourism and Immigration to Thailand. But, at the end of the day, it is the Authorities within the Immigration Bureau and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that are going to dictate Immigration and Visa policy for the Kingdom of Thailand. For this reason I think it is generally a good idea and the reason I am making this video again it is not to sort of belittle anyone at all. Again tourism authorities, tourism organizations, they can provide a lot of insight. We cite them frequently on this channel but you need to look at them for what they are when you are looking at them in an Immigration context because at the end of the day, it is the Immigration apparatus and the Government policymakers above them that are going to set policy with respect to Thai Immigration. It is not necessarily going to be anyone within a tourism related organization here in Thailand that is actually going to set policy or implement or execute or administer policy associated with Immigration and visas for the Kingdom of Thailand.