Transcript of the above video.

Wow, the 'bad idea train' seems to have come into town with regard to certain aspects of Immigration lately. Just a lot of talk of a bunch of different types of programs and things that they want to bring into Immigration. One of the big ones I think it which is a bad idea for Thailand is this Electronic Travel Authorization. As I've discussed in other videos, I view it as very analogous to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, which was created by the US Customs and Border Protection under the Department of Homeland Security sometimes referred to as the back-door Visa because it was applied to folks who had Visa Waiver access to the United States. They then started having to use this online system to be able to get into the United States, so effectively they had a Visa re-imposed upon them. 

It now seems Thailand or I shouldn't really say Thailand, just frankly a lot of nanny-minder busy bodies that looks to me like, in the bureaucracy have decided in their infinite wisdom that "wow COVID was such a great time with its Certificates of Entry, and Thailand Pass, no tourists and basically a completely moribund cash economy, that was such a fun time, hey let's maybe bring back some of those good old days and apply them", which is what the Electronic Travel Authorization looks like to me. At the end of the day, this thing's going to act as a ring fence around Thailand. It's going to create this extra layer of bureaucracy that you have to jump through in order to access Thailand for those, and up to this point I thought it was ostensibly only supposed to be for those holders of Visa Exemption Stamps but oh no, it's looking like they're going to go ahead and extend that out possibly even to the retirees. Let me get into this.

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that's pattayamail.com, the article is titled: The real deal about the end of one of Thailand's unpopular address forms. The thrust of that article goes in a different direction. I urge those who are watching this video go check out Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com for more information in that article. That being said, I'm going to quote this line real quick. Quoting directly: "At some stage in 2025, the ETA system will be extended to include all foreigners entering Thailand, including all Non-Immigrant Visa holders such as retirees." Could I give a piece of advice here? A Nickle's worth of free advice, and what was that in the movie The Devil's Advocate, the "worst vice is advice", but maybe don't do this like, at all. I don't really see the purpose of this ETA other than to assuage the sensibilities of a bunch of bureaucrats who think that people enjoy being poked, prodded, forced to fill out online forms in a system that probably is buggy and has all kinds of negative problems associated with it. I mean we've seen how many iterations of various online Immigration forms that don't work. I mean how many forums can you go to where you talk about the online TM30 system and how it doesn't work hardly at all. Meanwhile they're trying to digitize all this stuff. All it's going to do is drive away tourists. I mean I'm telling you with a statistical certainty, Thailand will end up with less tourists than they otherwise would have had because if nothing else, there's going to be like 1% of people that just say "I don't want to deal with any of that". Especially older folks. People forget that. Folks like up over 60, they don't like going online and filling out online forms to be able to do stuff that a week ago they could do anyway. Again if it's not readily apparent, I don't think this is a good idea. Okay fine, it was going to be applied to folks in the Visa exemption scheme, that made a certain degree of sense especially when you consider that's very analogous to the ESTA system, notwithstanding the fact I think ESTA was a bad idea and probably hurt the American tourism sector substantially in the aftermath of ESTA. But that being said, okay at least that was analogous. Now they're talking about dragging in the Non-Immigrant Visa holders. Why? How much more vetting do those people have to go through? I mean to get a Visa Extension in Retirement Visa status, Business Visa status, O Marriage Visa status, even ED Visas here in Thailand, you have to go through a substantial amount of scrutiny. Why do these people have to be doubly subjected to scrutiny and nonsense and just more forms, more bureaucracy? All they want to do is stay here in Thailand and spend money. Why mess with that? And what is the benefit of the ETA? And if you say “oh well it will help us screen people and blah, blah, blah”, we already have those facilities. The APPS and PBIX systems are there, not to mention the fact I just recently did a video where they added 330 new Immigration Officers. Well what are those people getting paid for if not to handle the Border checkpoints and to vet people coming in the Kingdom? That's their purpose. Some computer isn't going to do that as well as those people so why are we putting this in. I don't see the benefit of it for the aforementioned reasons I've just brought up. Meanwhile the cost to it could be substantial; it could have tremendous negative implications for the tourism sector. I think it will have negative implications for the tourism sector because statistically there's just going to exist a cohort of people that just throw up their hands and say no I don't want to deal with that to get into Thailand. Meanwhile again, there's no appreciable benefits that I can see. So what at the end of the day is the purpose of applying this, setting aside the issue of tourists? Okay that's its own argument, but definitely what is the purpose of applying this to Non-immigrant Visa holders who have definitely already been vetted by Immigration. And then meanwhile the true milk cows of Non-immigrant Visa holders, the retirees. Why mess with those people unnecessarily?

Again I want to put this out there very clearly too to those folks that are watching this. It is not a foregone conclusion that this is coming in. They already started talking about this, then they said they were going to postpone it. My hope is cooler heads prevail and realize that hey, this could cost Thailand way more than it could ever benefit the Kingdom.