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When Will Tourism Return to Thailand?

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing tourism in Thailand and we are discussing it with COVID-19 in the background if you will. 

A lot of questions I have had from a lot of different Expats who are stuck outside of Thailand in some cases, as well as would be tourists is, "when can we expect Tourism to resume?" This is also on the minds of many of our clients who have businesses here in Thailand especially tourism related businesses, entertainment-related businesses, food and beverage type businesses as these folks are in a situation that is precarious because of this shutdown. So the question on everyone's lips is "When will tourism return?" 

In a recent article from Thai Examiner, that is thaiexaminer.com, this is quite a good article. It is quite long and again that is thaiexaminer.com,  I urge those who are watching this video to go check out that article. It is quite in depth. I am going to quote a few excerpts from this to provide some to provide some insight, to provide some context and then I will basically provide my insight on what we have been dealing with on top of this. Quoting directly: "Fears are growing that inward access to Thailand may be restricted for some time, even beyond the already extended passenger flight ban until July 1st". For those who are unaware, this is me speaking now and I am quoting. For those who are unaware, the Thai authorities have banned inbound flights for foreigners. Now Thai Nationals can return. In limited circumstances foreign diplomats, airline personnel can enter the Kingdom but basically Thai Nationals only can come back in at the moment but even that is a rather cumbersome process. It is not overly straightforward even for a Thai National to return to Thailand and this is on-going until July 1st as the article notes. Quoting further: "Comments this week by Government Officials and even from the Australian ambassador suggesting that a normal extended range of flights between Thailand and Australia may not be available until the latter part of the year.” Quoting further: "Foreigners living in Thailand and stranded away from their families were devastated last week by the decision to extend the inward travel ban on passenger flights until July 1st at the earliest." We did another video contemporaneously with this one specifically going in to how bi-national families are being separated as a result of this travel ban. I urge you if you are watching this video to check that out. "However, there is now also growing concern after the Governor of the Thai Tourism Authority suggested this week that under the government plans to relaunch tourism, there would be three stages which would only see foreign tourists in Thailand from October."  

So I kind of wear two hats in my life. There is me the normal person and then there is me the Attorney. Me the normal person, I am a big believer in "hope for the best, plan for the worst". I am hoping July 1 we are going to see a lot of this lifted. Frankly I think, this is my personal opinion let me be clear but I do think folks both in the government outside the government, have gotten rather overwrought about this overall situation. I mean at the time of this video we are on a day where there has been no viral transmission of this disease, no cases reported. Ongoing cases are rather small and the death toll from this is quite small. Now, all lives are important. I certainly understand that. I am no expert on how this works however the overall situation would seem to suggest that the "flattening the curve" initiative undertaken by the Thai Authorities is working, it is operating. It has worked for lack of better term. Hopefully, we are going to see things start to reopen, I hesitate to say rather quickly but in the upcoming weeks and over the course of the next month to the point that I hope we will have protocols in place that will allow inbound flights of foreigners coming into Thailand. That being stated, who knows what the future holds. Things remain to be seen. 

The thing to take away from this video is, understand as I said earlier I have two hats. I want to be as optimistic as I can but when I read reports and this isn't the only one, this Thai Examiner report, and again I urge you to read this if you are watching this video, but I try to be as optimistic as possible but at the same time the Attorney in me has to look at worst case scenarios and I do think that they are especially where you have Authorities here in Thailand who are making these kind of statements saying "things could go on till October", it is probably wise to heed that information for what it is and understand that we may not be seeing the floodgates reopened to tourism for some weeks and possibly months to come.