Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing well we're basically discussing Thai Visa policy. I'm going to jump right in here. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Government policies lack foresight. Quoting directly: “Conflicting statements from the Ministry of Sports and Tourism and the Ministry Foreign Affairs about the recent Visa-free policy for some groups of tourists have only contributed to complete to confusion over the matter.” Yeah, we reported on this. They were talking about changing it from 60-day visa exempt, back down to 30 days and now it seems like, like with many things, one part of the Government is saying one thing and another part is saying something else. Quoting further: "On March 16, Tourism and Sports Minister Sorawong Thienthong publicly stated that the Government would reduce the visa-free period from 60 to 30 days. Later that same week, Minister of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Nikorndej Balankura issued a contrasting statement insisting that no decision had been made to cut the period and that tourists currently in Thailand would not be affected. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he added, had yet to assess the potential impact of any such change." Well, the question I pose there is, is that within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs bailiwick? I thought internal Immigration matters were Interior. That said, quoting further: "However, the recent contradicting information only serves to highlight the perception that Thai Government Policy is liable to change at any moment." - I'll get back to that in a minute - quoting further: "It would be no surprise if potential tourists think twice, while those already here can't be blamed for fearing repercussions will impact their own stays."

Now that is a good point. Okay, I do get that outsiders sort of, it causes a lot of consternation: "Am I going to get on overstay? Is that going to cause a blacklisting? Could I be detained?" Honestly though, I think if you want to fix the problem, Thailand gets to set its own Immigration Policies and those may change. Look, Thailand, it took me a long time to get used to this because I was used to the kind of monolithic thinking of America, where it's like glacial change and when something changes, it changes sort of over time at a public policy level. Here in Thailand, things will shift rather rapidly. It comes from their history of having to, essentially back in the old days, fend off all these colonial powers and have to shift around and pivot and do what they had to do, and then now in the modern world, look the world changes fast now, okay. I don't blame the Thai establishment for sometimes saying "whoops chung - stop that. Full stop, okay, now full speed ahead in this direction”. I get it. Exigent circumstances can demand sort of dynamic change; I can understand that. 

Now that being said, where do I see that this could be improved? Create a bottleneck if you will, a more controlled, streamlined channel of information pertaining to Immigration. The problem is people say things, then the media will run with it - and look I'm sometimes guilty of this myself - I'll see something reported, we will put up a headline, we'll talk about it. Now I won't give, usually I'll say “this is what it is”, but you could get a mis-impression of the situation if you see that headline a week later, and there's been massive policy change in the meantime, okay. That's my point. And that is a symptom if you will of the underlying issue of there's no sort of coherent if you will spokes body fount of information if you will, on Immigration where it says, "hey, this is going to be the policy; we're going to implement this under this set of circumstances." Now for those that understand how the Thai public forum works, this is sort of a part of the overall process here, if you want to look at it that way where certain things are kind of thrown up against the wall to see if they stick. And some things will stick, and some things won't; and people like things and not like things and it'll be kind of honed more. When you're not used to this as an outsider, this can be very daunting. So that said, I can completely understand, and it has been said in Immigration circles recently, "striking a balance". I like that notion, "we are striking a balance", and I think one place where a good balance could be struck on a public policy level within Immigration, would be having sort of a singular fount if you will, of the information pertaining to real fundamental changes, not just like, "Hey we're thinking of rolling out this Visa; we're throwing that against the wall." No. Like if you're going to change something like Exemption Status, you need to have sort of a tight narrative on how that's going to happen, how it could come into play, because it can have such an impact on the foreign community: tourists, expats, all of us. Again, if there is sort of a centralized fount to that information, I think that would probably be better for everybody. 

Again, Thailand needs to retain her sovereign prerogative regarding Immigration Policy. If she needs to quickly - (got that snap right) - quickly sort of snap change to a new policy, she needs to retain that; that needs to be a reserved right that Thailand can just flip if needed, okay. But that said, for general policy changes, again a single fount, especially for important Immigration issues, it might not be a bad idea to have that, with sort of a tightened narrative, so that people's expectations are in line with the reality coming.