Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Electronic Travel Authorization yet again, and a bit of in my mind good news because I have some real qualms about this thing. Quoting directly from the Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Visa policies threaten soft power hippos, gay marriage and gambling. Yeah, the overall article, it's kind of eclectic, it talks about a number of different things going on here in Thailand. I urge those who are watching this video, go check out that article for more detail. That said, this was very pertinent to this video, quoting directly: "The plan to insist all Visa-exempt tourists obtain pre-visit online permission has now been postponed, but not cancelled. Apparently, the likely confusion amongst millions of Indian and Chinese wannabe tourists has not been thought out." 

Yeah, this is what I have been talking about since I first heard about it. I'm really worried that Thailand is basically going to set up a ring fence around herself in terms of Tourism and create obstacles and create basically buffers if you will, or walls if you will - a ring fence is a good analogy I think - of keeping people out. I mean when somebody says "hey I can just get on a plane and go to this country and have my vacation. I don't have to worry about a bunch of getting online and dealing with some neo-Soviet Digital Visa interface thing", which is not a Visa but again it's modelled after the Electronic System for Travel Authorization which was the brain child of the Bush Administration; George W Bush, not H.W. Bush; big difference, speaks for itself. But in any event, the Electronic System for Travel Authorization was called a backdoor Visa at the time it was created because it did the same thing with those who could go into the United States under the Visa waiver program. It required them to go through this online backdoor Visa process. The Electronic Travel Authorization is very similar; in fact, I would argue it's almost a replica in many ways. It is also very similar to the so-called Thailand Pass which was the second iteration of what was initially called the Certificate of Entry to get into Thailand during the pandemic, which I don't understand why we need this extra system when there is no exigent emergency - I think you could argue the so-called “emergency” that caused the creation of Certificate of Entry was in and of itself not the ”emergency” that everyone claimed it was - but let's set that aside.

In any event, the point I am trying to make with this video is a) it looks like it's being postponed. That's a good idea because I'm hoping we don't ultimately do this. We have the Immigration infrastructure to deal with those who would come to Thailand for otherwise nefarious purposes; we have biometrics in place. Quite honestly the Immigration Police in Thailand are quite good. The APPS System, the PIBICS System, it all works. I don't understand why we need this extra layer which could only operate to the detriment of the Tourism Industry here in the Kingdom of Thailand. So, it is definitely a good piece of news to see that this is being postponed, hopefully so that cooler heads prevail and we just kind of put this aside and move forward with something else.