Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the possibility of a Thai Homestay Visa. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Expanded homestay seen as a booster for Thai Tourist numbers. Quoting directly: "Projected Prime Minister, Move Forward Party leader, Pita Limjaroenrat, has stressed that Thailand needs to diversify the international tourist market by a Homestay Act. The notion of sharing your home with a stranger, or renting him or her a spare room, is not new but the idea of Thai legislation to encourage the process is certainly new." Quoting further: "A Homestay Act which would probably take shape as another Non-Immigrant Visa, would enable international visitors to stay 3 months (plus extensions) as long as they remain in a registered private home. The law would need to spell out the duties of host and guest, particularly with regards to Immigration and Labour Department issues, to avoid unwelcome and counter-productive news stories in the international press." 

This seems to be a brain child that was sort of spawned from the notion, and one that I agree with, from the Move Forward Party; it was one of their platforms I believe which was a sort of decentralization in terms of economic activity. For those outside of Thailand or who are new to Thailand, Bangkok, the Central and Eastern Economic Corridor, but Bangkok especially is really the epicentre of economic activity in Thailand. It is one of these things that it has both good and bad sides to it but the big thing is provinces outside sort of the core if you will, the core urban area of Thailand, don't experience nearly the same economic activity as does that core and again not to get political here, but some have proposed that ‘hey we need to do something about this because it contributes to a lot of inequality in terms of wealth throughout the country’ and thereby kind of contributes to underlying tensions as time goes on, that seems to be the thinking. 

Now the notion of a Homestay sort of Visa seems to be again as noted in the quoted excerpts, seems to have to do with the idea of okay tourism is centred on places like Phuket, Bangkok, Pattaya, Hua Hin, Chiang Mai, those places are always going to be tourism hot spots, Koh Samui, another one and some of the other islands  but again in this sort of drive to kind of decentralize that, they are looking at ways to sort of incentivize people going to places more off the beaten path if you will in terms of Tourism. I think overall the intention behind this is good.

That said, the notion of this sort of Homestay Visa, that is a very nebulous thing. You would have to have a pretty clear set of statutory requirements, pretty clear statutory language to deal with this. Also remember it would have to be dealt with keeping in mind the Immigration Act of 1979, so again you could pass a new Act that just created a new Visa I guess or created new protocols with a new Visa involved. That said it sounds an awfully lot like the so-called Volunteer Visa which has been around for some time; it is a product of Ministerial Regulations. We have seen problems with it especially fraud associated with it roughly the past year or so. That said it remains to be seen if perhaps maybe a Homestay Visa might be a welcome change. I don't know what the answer to that is; I don't know what the framework would look like. We will certainly keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.