Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the current state of the tourism sector here in Thailand. Let me just go ahead and jump in. Quoting directly from a recent article titled: Unwelcome rebirth of zero-dollar tours. Let's do some background here, what is a zero-dollar tour? Well this term came about some time about 7 or 10 years ago, I remember when this came up. So what was happening was there were these tour operators primarily out of mainland China and they were basically setting up tours in Thailand. They were having the mainlanders, the tourists themselves, pay usually to an account in Hong Kong was my recollection and then they would bring them down here and it all operated in kind of a closed circuit of Chinese/Thai tourism vendors but the money never came to Thailand. As a result, the Thais really were not happy. Thai Authorities were not happy at all because resources were expended here in Thailand, the infrastructure was utilized here in Thailand but Thailand didn't really get any benefit out of it because none of the money came in. This was not just some minor case, this thing came to a serious head. If I recall, they started impounding buses of various operations; they even I believe detained, arrested and held a person involved with this. This was a big deal. So when you start hearing the term zero-dollar, it always kind of causes me to perk up a little bit. 

Quoting directly: "He said these illegal operators slashed the prices of their tour packages to unreasonable levels based on operational costs, or offer tour packages without any fares."  I believe "he" is the Head of the Tourism Operators' Association of Thailand, I believe it's called ATTA. Quoting further: "He said the price dumping strategies meant to secure an overwhelming market share, eliminating competitors to monopolize the market and arbitrarily increase prices in the future." Yeah, I have to say, this is well noted if you will by that Head of that Tourism Association. That is a tactic often utilized. 

We actually saw this in the United States during the so-called COVID pandemic or whatever, lockdowns. One of the up shots of it was small businesses shut down at an alarming rate while for example Amazon gained a ton of market share and is increasingly coming to dominate the overall retail market in the United States to the point where one has to wonder at what point do they start arbitrarily upping the cost of things because they just quite frankly can. 

So I think that this is a genuine concern to anybody operating here in Thailand especially the tourism sector, and I can completely understand. Again, I've talked about this in other videos. One, tourism is an occupation, tour guide etc., an occupation which is restricted from foreigners and is restricted exclusively to Thais here in Thailand. That is a restricted occupation and I can completely see why Thais are concerned that this sector will be dominated by foreigners to the point where not only will Thais no longer control it, but foreigners will arbitrarily and capriciously begin raising the prices associated with tourism here in Thailand to the detriment of the entire economy overall. 

So I think overall this is something that it's good for relevant Thai Authorities to be concerned about. How exactly this plays out as time moves on remains to be seen, but we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as this situation evolves.