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Will It Be 2024 Before Thailand Sees 2019 Tourism Numbers?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing tourist numbers and a recent insight popped out to me when reading an article on Thai visas just generally. Some have asked me "Do you just sit around reading articles on Thai Immigration?" and “Yeah, that is kind of part of my job. I also sit around reading stuff about US Immigration, Thai Corporate Law that may or may not be in the works or being proposed, matters pertaining to foreigners here in Thailand sort of generally, things pertaining to possible Treaty benefits etc. I mean that is kind of what we do." 

That being said, this article is from thaivisa.com, it is titled Thailand to Remain Closed to Mass Tourism until March, Travel Bubble Discussions Ongoing, and I thought the following excerpt was really interesting. "The prospect of Thailand's borders remaining closed to most foreigners until March will come as a further blow to Thailand's beleaguered Tourism Industry which this week was told not to expect the pre-Coronavirus pandemic level of 40 million visitors to return to Thailand until 2024." That is a big statement so we are talking the numbers we were looking at in 2019 going into 2020 and possibly not seeing that until 2024. Now that stated, 2019/2018, 40 million tourists, those were banner numbers. That was the zenith of Thai tourism in terms of numbers. So understand, just because we get to half of that perhaps in 2021 which I think might be being optimistic, but I think it is possible or even 2022 hitting a little over half of that, even if you get to half of that it is substantially better than where we are at right now which is pretty near zero. Also understand that the Thai economy, the Tourism, is bustling at 40 million, big time. I think things are sustainable at half of that number to use that term. I think people throw that term around, sustainable, a little too often these days.

That stated, I think definitely many of the businesses that thrive off of 40 million tourists could survive much better than they are now mind you under a 20 million person tourism regime. So again, just because it doesn't hit the same numbers that it was hitting prior to this whole thing coming on, it doesn't mean that things are just bereft of hope forever. So again you know "hope for the best, plan for the worst". 

We would certainly love to see 40 million tourists again tomorrow or those daily numbers coming back but at least for the time being that doesn't seem like it is going to be particularly likely but I would say, even getting to half of that number would be far better than the situation we are in currently.