Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Thailand Pass. For those who are unaware, when this all began back in March 2020 and the Emergency Decree was promulgated, we had to start dealing with all these myriad new restrictions presumably temporary but later on the Certificate of Entry or COV proved to be pretty cumbersome and they rolled out the Thailand Pass system which is arguably better than the COE but, shades of gray, yes it is degrees better in terms of efficiency.

I was reading a recent article and it made me decide to make this video. The article came from: ASEAN NOW, that is aseannow.com, the article is titled: Improvements being made to Thailand Pass for convenience of Travelers. Quoting directly: "Bangkok (NNT): (that is the National News Bureau of Thailand so I think ASEAN NOW is translating this) but Bangkok (NNT) quote: "Faults with the Thailand Pass system are being addressed as some delays in approving travelers’ Thailand Passes have occurred. Improvements to Thailand Pass services are being made to improve the experience of users and provide Travelers with more convenience. A new entry pathway called TPHS has now been approved and promises to cut the time travelers need to spend with Thailand Pass." So they have created another layer of bureaucracy to improve things which, okay.

I would posit this. Maybe the best improvement to the Thailand Pass for all concerned would be the end of the Thailand Pass. That is just one man's opinion but I fail really to see what it is doing at this point. If Public Health and Safety is the issue, I mean we are doing all these tests. A test is required to get on the plane, the airlines can verify that. Then these folks even in the Test & Go situation, you have got a day; you arrive, you get tested, you spend a night in a hotel and you wait five days, you get tested again. My question is where is the value add of Thailand Pass in all of this? Going back to the Certificate of Entry there were a lot of questions there, but one it was earlier on in this thing when I would argue we had less knowledge of what a threat this whole thing poses. Now I think it is pretty safe to presume the threat is not the existential one that was being laid out or we were all hypothesizing on when this started. Leaving that aside, I really do question the need for it at this point. I mean it just seems like an extra amount of bureaucracy which is quite frankly clogging up the pipeline of prospective tourists to Thailand. I mean I think it is really time to re-examine this whole "Visa before the Visa" or even this whole process of making someone - I remember years ago I said look “Thailand the bureaucracy can be off-putting to foreign nationals when they have to deal with it”, but most foreign nationals didn't really have to deal with it all that often because the Immigration System they only dealt with it once in a while. Also and this is key, it was relatively easy to get here so we had a lot of tourists and tourism flourished. Now it's like we have sort of exported the bureaucracy and imposed it on the very people we should be encouraging to come most. 

Now I understand the policy makers that be have a balance that they are trying to maintain but at a certain point, especially 2 years on we are getting to from the promulgation of the original Emergency Decree I think it is time to really ask ourselves do we need the Thailand Pass?