Transcript of the above video: 

Oftentimes on this channel - and I know there's some of you out there that will say, "oh no not you Ben" - but I can be a little critical on here from time to time, and yes, yes, I know that sounds a little strange, but yes I can be critical. I don't always like to be critical which is the reason for this video, because I was actually reading an article in the print edition originally of the Bangkok Post that brought this article to my attention and I said I'm going to make a video on this because it's nice to see an academic who actually gets what's going on, because quite frankly oftentimes, I think academics are in their Ivory Tower; they don't quite always know what's going on. 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Shift tourism focus to wealthier older demographic: expert. Quoting directly: "Assoc. Prof. Saifon Suindramedhi, Dean of Thammasat University's College of Interdisciplinary Studies said the initiative's goal of receiving 40 million visitors and making 3 - 3.5 trillion Baht in revenue is achievable. She said Thailand welcomed about 35.5 million tourists last year, so reaching the Government's new target would require just an additional 5 million visitors." Again, getting into the targets and things, I urge those who are watching this video, check out that article in detail and you can see where the thrust of that goes. 

That said, the first thing I would say is I kind of question the tourism numbers. I think we've seen numbers higher than we have ever seen here before ever, okay in terms of actual tourism numbers. Now as we saw last year in their push to push the Digital Wallet project, the "core coalition" party has been going on and on in the narrative about how we are somehow deficient in our economics, that we are in some kind of economic crisis that they want to push this notion that they have to print up a bunch of money, put us all into debt for it, then create a bunch of digital magic bean tokens that we all get in exchange for the debt that we end up having to pay off but we can't use the digital magic bean tokens anywhere. No, no, no, we can only use them at certain times, at certain places, and to buy certain things. They tried to push the narrative that we were in an economic crisis in order to push that particular program. It didn't really work because quite frankly we're not in the crisis that they are claiming that we are in. I personally have a question as to, now okay now they are saying, "hey there's 35.5 million arrivals we had last year". Well, are those real arrivals? Because as we discussed in other videos, I question these numbers a lot because prior to this last year, you didn't get 60 days-on-arrival it wasn't possible to have the Destination Thailand Visa. A ton of different countries did not have Visa-on-Arrival or Visa exemption at all. Russia gained a 90-day Visa exemption, most people have 60 days, so we went from people having to renew by either doing a Border Run or running to Immigration every 30 days. And a lot of people would choose the Border Run if they were on 30 day stamps. Well those people would get counted effectively as tourists twice by doing their Border Runs. As we have discussed, the books were kind of cooked in the past because you had all these people running in and out to effectively maintain status that could have been maintained from one entry and then just further lawful status. DTV is allowing that now as is the increased amount of status that stems from Visa Exemption, now 60 days as supposed to 30 days in the past. My only point is do we really have less tourists or are we just seen a reflection of tourists being more accurately counted? And if we are, 35.5 in real tourism numbers is a lot of numbers okay. Nobody should be unhappy about that. That said, I don't think it's that low. I think it's way, way higher than that. Frankly anybody that has been here for a very long time, I have never seen the numbers of foreigners I see on the street just in downtown Bangkok at these levels since prior to the airport shut down in 2009, if that gives any sort of context. 

That being said, quoting further: "Attractions she said, primarily draw younger travelers who tend to stay for shorter periods, and spend less than older tourists. She suggested the Government also focus on high-spending tourists who can stay in the country for longer, particularly retirees." Yes mam, that is great thinking. I'm glad to see somebody is getting it. It is not just the younger folks we need to worry about. Retirees are very helpful for Thailand. Why? Because they come here and sit here and spit out money. I mean I don't mean to be that blunt but it's pretty prima facie; it's right in your face. Now if nothing else, retirees come here they have got some money built up, they just come here and want to hang out and spend money. They are a pretty optimal kind of group frankly. Quoting further: "Associate Professor Saifon also advocates the creation of an ecosystem that supports senior travellers through a friendly urban design and policies that cater for them." Fair enough, that makes a lot of sense. Smiling faces and just being nice to these people oftentimes is enough, but fair enough. Quoting further: "Senior tourists don't need to visit many places in one day," she said. "They may go to one or two places a day and prefer small or secondary cities over major urban centres." Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Again, these are the guys that find their little out of the way places and then again, much like a sprinkler, just sit down on the ground and spit out money at the local economy. Quoting further: Quote: "They seek comfort, relaxation and a sense of security," she added. They may look for a place with an infrastructure that supports their needs, including elder-friendly hotels, accessible health care services and welcoming local communities." And quite frankly, you can find that in many, many places in Thailand. Frankly the infrastructure here is off the charts. I go to other countries, including America and I look around and I'm like man, you guys really need to get your game up because the Thais are just, they are taking names and kicking you know what, when it comes to the issue of infrastructure. 

My only point with this video is I quote a lot of things. Every now and then we quote academics and quite frankly academics in my opinion are oftentimes way, way, way attenuated from reality but here's a person who is actually seeing the reality for what it is. And yeah, we need to encourage younger tourists, there's no doubt about that. I think we do need to continue to encourage folks who want to stay over here long-term: DTV is a good example, LTR is another example, Elite, standard Business Visa, standard Retirement Visa, standard Marriage Visa, even the ED from time to time can be useful. We should be trying to encourage people to come here and I think we should especially be encouraging retirees. Again and I'm not trying to make a joke out of this but just purely from a fiscal standpoint, they require a lot less if you will maintenance than virtually any of the other tourist groups, and again, a lot of them just want to come here and quietly find a place to sit down and then thereafter, effectively just throw money at Thailand.