Integrity Legal - Law Firm in Bangkok | Bangkok Lawyer | Legal Services Thailand Back to
Integrity Legal

Legal Services & Resources 

Up to date legal information pertaining to Thai, American, & International Law.

Contact us: +66 2-266 3698

info@integrity-legal.com

ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawThailand Immigration LawWill Inbound Foreign Retirees Outnumber Tourists in 2021 Thailand?

Will Inbound Foreign Retirees Outnumber Tourists in 2021 Thailand?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing tourists or retirees and Thailand.

A recent article that came to my attention from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, article is titled: Tourism Prospects Opaque. Quoting directly: "The Tourism sector may have to wait until 2022 to see "normal revenue" described as 80% of the pre-pandemic level as major markets are reluctant to ease travel measures unless there is a distribution of a successful vaccine, says the Tourism Authority of Thailand."  

This brought a question to the forefront of my mind which is "Could we actually see a year, that year being 2021, where there are actually more retirees coming into Thailand than are foreign tourists?" The reason I ask this question is because we have noticed the number of retirees looking to come to Thailand for a number of different reasons most notably Thailand's handling of the Coronavirus outbreak and the measures that they have taken in response to COVID-19. 

Another thing that I have noticed and I have been told by folks that have contacted me is they have said "well I was planning to retire in another year or two but with the economic situation being what it is, it just makes sense to go ahead and bring those plans forward." So I think it is definitely possible we could see a rather large influx of retirees in 2021 and it is not outside the realm of possibility to presume that it may actually outnumber tourists; at least in Q1 and Q2. Now I am always I shouldn't say I am hesitant because I do it anyway, but I don't always love speculating because I get proven wrong sometimes. I have been wrong and I am happy to admit when I am wrong especially about Immigration matters. I try to try to bring this stuff to folks’ attention mostly to provide some insight and the reason I do this is because it should be noted that retirees have a different demographic impact or economic impact on the country over here than tourists do. They are not just sort of in and out. They come in, they spend a lot more time here but they also spend a lot more money here. So in many ways, they may end up as a subset of folks coming into Thailand, they may end up softening the blow economically in the sense that what we lack in numbers as far as tourists, we may make up a little bit, probably not nearly to the level that we need to get to, to get to pre-pandemic  numbers as far as tourism revenue, but I definitely think that retirees should be looked at as a possible way of sort of softening the blow if you will of this POST-COVID response era and hopefully Thai Immigration will deal with and process these cases through as efficiently as possible because I definitely see those retirees as providing a substantial amount of economic activity in the coming months.