Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the main factor in the recovery of Tourism here in Thailand. What would that factor be?

I thought about making this video after reading this article. This is from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, small excerpt here, the article is titled: Long Road to Recovery. I thought of this when I read this excerpt. I am going to go ahead and quote directly from the bangkokpost.com: "Marisa Sukosol Nunbhakdi, President of the Thai Hotels Association said quarantine free reopening without requiring a minimum stay will be the main factor for a recovery in Bangkok but it must simplify travel journeys for Tourists to attract greater demand." Quite honestly this paragraph was the most succinct and concise explanation of the main factor to get things back on track that I have read and interesting that it comes from the President of the Thai Hotels Association. We quoted some information from the Tourism Council of Thailand in prior videos, I put a lot of stock in the Associations of these private enterprise that are looking to economically benefit. Government Spokespeople and Government announcements are useful in what they are but folks who are working in the hotel industry, they know what guests want; they know what tourists are looking for. "Reopening without minimum State quarantine", yeah that's big but she brings up a good point. "Simplified travel journeys for tourists to attract greater demand," and as we have discussed you know the Certificate of Entry, now the Thailand Pass; I really hope that is not a permanent fixture of the immigration system because if it is Thailand is going to have some real problems in the long run with having any chance of getting back to the numbers of tourists that we saw back in 2019. 

Now I am not saying that necessarily maybe even be possible economically and in circumstances maybe even within this decade. That said I think there needs to be a serious paradigm shift away from this kind of frankly bureaucratic thinking wherein folks just kind of posit that "well nobody has a problem jumping through umpteen hoops to come spend a two-week vacation in Krabi". I mean that that just isn't the case; that isn't how people think. I think that this really sums it up, this just brief excerpt. I urge people to go read that article in the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, there is a lot of insight in there. 

I thought that was really interesting. That really just hit it right on the head. Look getting rid of this major quarantine is a big step and let's be clear, it is a big step and it is a good thing to see us making that move forward. Now the next step is "hey we need to maybe deal with getting rid of a lot of these hurdles so the tourists not only want to come here, but they don't need to go through a bunch of hassle to get here because I have literally seen people throw their hands up and say "yeah, it is just not worth it, I am not going to deal with this system to get in there. As soon as this goes away I am happy to come to Thailand." I think that is probably the way it is going to work and hopefully we will see things change sooner rather than later.