Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the "dual aims" of Tourism and law enforcement. What are we talking about here? Well I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Tourist Police ramp up safety measures ahead of Q4 surge in Pattaya. Quoting directly: "Highlighting the Prime Minister's 2024 initiative to implement a "Visa-Free" policy for foreign tourists to boost national tourism, Pol. Lt. Gen. Saksira emphasized its dual aim of promoting tourism across 55 provinces and reinforcing security measures to enhance tourist confidence." "Its dual aim" meaning the police apparatus both in terms of Immigration specifically and the Royal Thai Police in a more general sense. So what are we talking about here? It's kind of one of these constant balancing acts that Thailand has to do which is encouraging tourism on one hand but also maintaining a robust and effective immigration apparatus to keep out the so called "good guys in, bad guys out" we heard about some years back. Basically, keeping foreign criminals, perpetrators of all sorts of crimes or nefarious activity out of the Kingdom, while encouraging tourists to come in and then once they are in, to go ahead and practice law enforcement in such a way to make sure that everybody has a good time but at the same time Law and Order is upheld.

There is a “dual aim”. It's almost sort of a dual mandate. They oftentimes in the context of the Federal Reserve, you'll hear them talk about a 'dual mandate'. Well setting that aside, here in Thailand yeah, I would say that especially Immigration Police do have something of a dual mandate with regard to the issue of wanting to encourage tourism on one level but again not to such an extent that it operates antithetical to their mandate of enforcing Immigration Law. So if you are looking for laxity in terms of Thai Immigration, you're probably not going to see laxity per se. But as far as reasonable restrictions and wanting to encourage tourism, yeah I think that there are going to be more visas, more schemes to try to bring in more foreigners to enjoy Thailand on a tourism basis and thereby gain foreign direct investment, gain foreign exchange, basically gain foreign business thereby, I think that that's very likely we are going to see more of this moving into the future.