Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing that old chestnut, that old Vietnam Tourism Chestnut. I don't know how many years have gone by, it's like the last 10, that I've noticed this theme that Thailand's doing fine it terms of tourism, and then you start seeing, and Bangkok Post seems to be particularly susceptible to picking these up, probably so guys like me that are cantankerous will make the videos and then they get more notice, whatever, where they will talk about, "Oh, that Vietnam Tourism is kicking right on up there". Let me just get through this. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Vietnam's tourist star is on the rise. The "tourism star" okay. Quoting directly: "Thailand may be fully in the spotlight, where Southeast Asian tourism is concerned. Its starring role in Season 3 of The White Lotus has supercharged vacationers' (already high) interest. But there's a neighbouring destination that's one upping.." - I immediately thought of when I saw "one upping" I immediately thought of Adam Carolla, Adam Carolla's podcast - I've been listening to him for years - people kind of forget this. The sort of three wise men, the first three progenitors of the podcast phase really were Rogan, and everybody knows him, and then Adam Carolla and people also forget Kevin Smith. The three of them together were really in that first year. I remember listening to Adam Carolla's first podcast. In any event, he had Bald Bryan, he had Bald Bryan as his sidekick for years and he used to have this button you pushed, that this girl, it was some clip from some old game show, "don't be a one-upper", and I just think of it every time, one-upping! Okay, so don't be a one-upper on the Vietnam tourism is I guess the point of this video, is all I am trying to say. In any event, quoting further: "..it in terms of growth: Vietnam now ranks as the third most visited country in Southeast Asia, with 17.5 million international arrivals in 2024, edging ahead of Singapore. It follows Malaysia, which claimed 25 million visitors, and Thailand, at the top spot with 35 million." I mean, it's just, okay. Can we ever just have the news be, "hey Thailand did good in tourism this year" or "Thai economy good?" No because that doesn't sell headlines, so it has to be something; you have got to stir up the pot, I get it. This is the way the world works in the news business, whatever. In any event, I'm just not really; look yes there's going to be Vietnamese tourism; there's going to be people going over there; it is a growth market. I am not saying that, but can we stop creating this kind of false competition between these markets.

One, and the thing I do agree with, at least in principle with the core coalition party here in Thailand on tourism, I thought it was naïve to think that we would get like a pan-ASEAN Visa; you are never going to, I mean we can barely get Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Interior to align their policies I mean here in Thailand. Look and this is the world over, that is not be making fun of Thailand, okay. Try and figure out how the interplay between Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State works in the US, okay. There's a mystery of the ages. I mean you have got Byzantine scribes that would look at that and be like "what?". So the point I am trying to make here is, that is not me singling out Thailand; it's not me also saying that they were being overly naïve regarding the notion of a pan-ASEAN visa, but the point I'm trying to make is that's a good idea. The better idea is just more coordination along the lines of tourism policy and I think Thailand has largely done that. With the DTV now, it's effectively, look it used to be a real problem. I thought this was always a real problem where people would come here, you had the 30-day stamps. Okay, it bumped up to 60, that helped, but they would come here and then they would want to go other places and it was just cumbersome to get to Seam Reap to see Angkor Wat, it was cumbersome to, okay you have got to go into Vientiane, and you have got to do this Visa, then coming back to Thailand you have got to go through all this rigamarole. Look, the DTV came in and got rid of a lot of that. People can come in and get their 6 months, come and going from Thailand; they can come and go Cambodia, come and go Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, any of those places, pretty easily.

The point I'm trying to make is, the theme of coordinated tourism policy in ASEAN is a good idea. I think that the Core Coalition Party was on point with that one. Alignment of Immigration Policy would be great in a perfect world, but I just don't think it's going to happen so why waste the time. Just go for tourism policy. And Vietnam has tons of cool stuff to see; I want to know more about Vietnam, personally. I'm not saying there's anything bad about it, but let's stop framing it as this competition between Thailand and Vietnam. Instead, it can be cooperative, and by the way, in between are couple of countries like Laos and Cambodia that can benefit as well. 

So I think there are a lot of ways we could end up seeing a lot of benefit moving forward to everybody's tourism sector by not creating this constant, again false competition between these countries' tourism sectors, that really doesn't exist and I don't even understand what creating it benefits.