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Major changes to tourist visas coming up


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http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/Tourism/30358483

The key provision appears to be "The Interior Ministry regulation will be amended to allow foreigners who receive a visa waiver for 30 days and travel into Thailand via land immigration checkpoints or land border checkpoints to enter the country with an unlimited number of visa waivers per calendar year."

This SEEMS to mean that you can make UNLIMITED visa runs per calendar year if you initially enter by land.  It may or may not actually require the initial land entry,  that that the exit/re-entry be by land.

The first comment on the Thaivisa coverage page (https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/1068563-thailand-announces-huge-changes-to-tourist-visas-in-bid-to-boost-tourism/?utm_source=newsletter-20181114-1434&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news&fbclid=IwAR1od0AJCxSpCMb6bPSD5horgaDgiT5yzYD3J_-UxautK_sTDNM7wUyIOOI) seem to cover the critical point.

""Tourism numbers and revenues must be taking one hell of a hit to do this; it is a refutation of everything the Junta has been doing or saying for years.  There is a great deal more to this story; I am looking forward to finding it out."

Now, they are saying that this is initially a two-month pilot program, but, if they actually put it in place, they may find it difficult to kill.  Certainly putting it in place and then killing it would hurt tourism even worse than it is already hurting.  (And it IS hurting: that's kinda obvious.)

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Wake up and smell the Coffee it has f**k all to do with Tourism numbers since the land borders are Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Myanma, who as not being known as “Big Spenders” as well as usually only visit for a few days and not 30 days at a time.

it is probably a reciprocal agreement to allow Thais multiple visits for longer durations to the mentioned countries, this alleged change is aimed at Asians and not Mr Farang, even though many think that Mr Farang is the only tourist in Thailand whereas in fact Mr Farang makes up less than 20% of total Tourist Figures.

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I agree. Up to a point. They could have just tweaked the ASEAN agreements if it was just about the neighbouring countries. I think this might be about a bit more, but for sure not Mr Farang who I also don't think registers much with immigration on any level.

Lots of Chinese cross the land border from Laos and if this is just restricted to land crossings...

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Tour buses actually drive across Laos to Chiang Mai. I think the Thais stopped the Chinese from driving their own cars, since they did things like driving on the wrong side and violating virtually every traffic law they could think of.

One bizarre thing the TOT does is to count all arrivals at the airports as tourists, even though some of them they may just be staying a few hours waiting for their flight to somewhere else.

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" I think the Thais stopped the Chinese from driving their own cars, since they did things like driving on the wrong side and violating virtually every traffic law they could think of."

You should see them in Laos, on their way to Thailand, they form "trains" where the one who is most skilled, takes the lead and up to 20 other cars follow, each at a distance of about 1 metre, at 50 km/hr,  wending their war through the Laos countryside, getting struck in fords and ditches....

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