Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, is Thailand going to become a haven for long staying tourists and investor type folk? I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Thousands of tourists stranded amid Middle East upheaval.  I've done a number of videos on this Middle East situation, how it is impacting immigration over here; how Immigration and the Tourism and Sports Ministry have to my mind and a tip of the hat to those folks, gone out of their way to accommodate folks that have been inconvenienced by this, that have been stranded in Thailand. They have made efforts to get those folks ongoing accommodation; they are even handing out 2,000 baht per day stipends to folks. There's a lot, really the alacrity from them they have really got on the ball quickly to deal with this, and I think that that is laudable; I think it's worth pointing out. That said, I have cited this article in another video but the thrust of it kind of goes a different way from what we are going to be talking about in this one and there was just a small excerpt I wanted to quote. Quoting directly: "However, in the long run, Thailand could use this opportunity to promote itself as a safe haven for long-stay tourists or foreign investors." 

This whole situation, history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes, it reminds me of little bit of COVID. I remember the Phuket Sandbox which I called it Devil's Island at the time because it was like the old French prison colony. You had to go through there and you were stuck there for like two weeks in quarantine and then you had to test a bunch of times, and only after you tested negative could you get out of the Sandbox. But people kind of forget that Thailand was the only place open to actual tourism all during all of that COVID stuff here in Southeast Asia. There really was no other place you could go. In fact at the time, Vietnam was affirmatively kicking people out while Thailand was the only place you could actually get into. Now the conditions were rather stringent to be able to do that, but it was possible. 

This notion of being a haven for long stay tourists and investors, I think it's probably not a terrible idea. I think it would probably be good for Thailand that there were a fair number of folks that were here that were long-stayers with the resources to be here, or invest money into the country. Now that said, be careful what you wish for because some of these long-stayers - as I've discussed in other videos - first of all they are rethinking the 60-day exemption because; I made a recent Foreigners Behaving Badly video where I just sort of asked, "what are all these folks coming over here to do?" because it seems like they are just coming over here to run amok and I can imagine where perhaps Immigration Policy might be rethought down the road. 

That said, under current circumstances with this situation in Iran where it is at, I think it's very likely that we will see a situation where this whole notion of long-stayers, notion of investors, probably not going to be on the front burner. What's going to be on the front burner is basically accommodating folks that can't get back to where they are from, dealing with them and then thereafter, sort of dealing with longer term immigration policy thinking. That said, that is kind of speculation on my part. Hard to say exactly how this is all going to play out, but we'll certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.