Transcript of the above video: 

Notwithstanding the fact that a lot of folks across the ether of the internet - especially here on YouTube - are running around talking about how open and easy Thailand Immigration is, yeah it the policies have changed, it is more open. Yeah, the 60-day exemption is a big game changer. 

Now everybody is running around talking about the Destination Thailand Visa as if it's a foregone conclusion that it is going to work a certain way, and the fact of the matter is we don't know how that's going to look. I've gone into great detail of that in other videos; I urge those who are interested to go check that out. But suffice it to say, we're going to know how the DTV works in quarter 1 and/or 2 of this upcoming year of 2025. Stay tuned as we roll out information on how that is proceeding. But long story short, again as I've discussed, for a number of reasons I don't think the DTV is going to work quite exactly how people think it's going to work. 

That being said, I thought of making this video in light of the fact that we have now the Thailand Immigration System (TIS) which is coming online looks like in 2025. They're also talking about rolling out the Electronic Travel Authorization for Thailand which I call the ring fence; it's basically creating a ring fence of hassles for people to even get into Thailand. I frankly don't even see what the purpose of it is. It's just a bunch of extra nonsensical bureaucracy that I think all of our technocratic, effectively overlords or folks that think they are technocratic overlords, just want to see all of us have to jump through all of these hoops endlessly; it's something that has been on their mind ever since COVID. So long story short though, and the reason for this video is I'm kind of hoping Thai Immigration, cooler heads will prevail and folks in Thai Immigration, especially at a policy level will start asking themselves, "should we really be imposing all of these obstacles, all of these hoops to jump through, just for people to come to our country and spend money?' Is that a good idea? And I don't think it is. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent comment on our channel, quoting directly: "My experience with the E-visa system last summer was so bad that if I didn't have visa exempt available, I would never visit Thailand again." Look, I think we're going to hear a lot of this. I don't think it's hyperbolic to say, look there's a subset of people that just want to be able to get on a plane, come to Thailand, present their passport - they are not criminals, they're not doing anything wrong - present their passport, hang out here for a few weeks and leave. And I don't know why Immigration and this Government seems so, quite frankly preoccupied, with hassling these people. They keep talking about the Tourist Tax which they want to figure out some system whereby they can suck 300 Baht off of everybody just because they want to come here to spend money. We would do a lot better by just streamlining our Immigration process, which is already pretty streamlined. Thai Immigration is doing a pretty good job under the prevailing system. Let's just start letting people come to Thailand, spend their money, have a good time and leave, rather than this bagging and tagging of people and putting them through all these hoops and digitized bureaucracy, for what? To what end? What's the benefit of that to the Kingdom of Thailand?