Transcript of the above video:

The question posed by this video is will Thai Immigration employ a "service mind" when they are doing their business? The reason I got to thinking of this was from a recent article in ASEAN NOW, that is aseannow.com, the article is titled: Immigration told to clean up their act: Employ a "service mind" - no playing on phones and no bribes.

We discussed this in another video about playing on phones etc. but quoting directly from this particular article: "Number 7 was an order for the office to have contingency plans ready to cope with an expected influx of more tourists now the country was fully reopen again. He said that Immigration was a first contact in Thailand for many tourists and they needed to present a good face to protect the image of the country." Yeah, I couldn't agree more especially as a Thai. Immigration, especially for tourists, Business Immigration and Non-Immigrant extensions and things like that that is kind of a different animal but when you are dealing with folks that come in; they have only been to Thailand one time; they came in on a 30-day stamp; they fell in love with the place; they want to stay an extra 30 days and importantly spend their money here, let's make it easy for them to do that. I don't think that is a bad idea at all. I think it was a good idea for this Immigration Officer to go down there and maybe encourage that. Quoting further: "This meant having a "service mind" when it came to dealing with visitors to Immigration. Again, in the context of Tourism, I think it is probably likely we may see that, a kind of service oriented attitude toward tourists. Meanwhile, again Non-Immigrants I think are going to continue to be treated much the same way we have seen in the past. Again, and I have stated this over and over especially in the past couple of years, Thai Immigration especially in the context of Non-Immigrant Long-Term Visa holders, has taken much more of an Immigration law enforcement approach rather than taking the paradigm that these are administrative matters. Notwithstanding the fact I definitely think it's a good idea for Immigration to present a good face, a service mind to tourists especially, I also think it is probably unlikely to expect big changes with respect to how things get processed in a Non-Immigrant context. 

Now whether that is good or bad, not really the point of this video. I could get into a video and get into that but I am pretty sure avid viewers are well aware of what I would think, but the point of this video is in a tourist context, I definitely think we probably will expect kind of is more service minded approach. Meanwhile remember Non-Immigrant Visas are not the same as Tourist Visas. It is a different department and they look at those differently. They look at Non-immigrant Visa applications differently, it's just scrutinized differently. 

Then finally, quote: "That meant a swift service and no waiting in outside tents or in long embarrassing queues." Yeah, again I think that is a great idea. We need to get tourism back here, we need to get back on our feet, we need that tourism money no doubt; we need that addition to GDP. I have been proud of Thailand. We have weathered this as well as any place could do I think under the circumstances but it is time to get back on our feet; it is time to get back to what we do best and it is time to start earning some money again and getting tourism back to where it needs to be.