nkg

9 hours ago, webfact said:

TAT governor Yuthasak Suphasorn said that interest at all TAT offices abroad was intense and that the STV would start in October.

 

"As soon as the STV news broke the London office had FIFTEEN calls," he said,"and there were SIXTEEN emails".

How many phone calls and emails does the TAT office in London normally get in a day?

7 hours ago, Swiss1960 said:

It will be a character test for Trump, whether or not he will tweet about his nomination already this weekend or whether he will want for Mrs. Justice Ginsburg's funeral to end...

 

Wait... has he tweeted already while I wrote these lines?

Here's his tweet:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1307146028555014145

21 hours ago, John CS said:

Masks work ? no,

the idea that you /we can control a virus by our behaviour is another falsehood , viruses work through their hosts & mutate until they are no longer effective, because the hosts (that's us) develop immunity through the use of our immune system, mental& physical well being,  nothing else.

Thailand is fortunate with its climate & relatively low levels of pollution & good food & not overly sedentary lifestyles

I have attached a CDC report in 2018 stating there is NO clinical evidence that masks are effective, & below this is a BMJ report re-confirming and stating that mask wearing actually increases infection, for influenza like viruses,  I provide this to help you understand that as humans we live with many viruses & that you should take comfit in this fact , understand vaccination is a monetary intetest & also not believe too much in Media scare stories. There is an agenda around this particular media friendly virus, it serves a wider function. Go well & no fear.

From number 16) on your Twitter screen-shot:

A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers:

Quote

The data from this study provide some reassurance about medical masks, and are the first data to show potential clinical efficacy of medical masks. Medical masks are used to provide protection against droplet spread, splash and spray of blood and body fluids.

You've chosen a part of the study that supports your own opinion, whilst leaving out the other (very important) conclusion that the study draws. If you don't believe me, have a look at the full study using the link below:

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577

Nice to hear the opinion of an ordinary Thai small business owner.

12 hours ago, webfact said:

He said that some people were opposing the idea saying they had no connection to tourism. He dismissed this saying that in one way or another everyone on Phuket is involved in tourism either directly or indirectly.

Spot on. Phuket has many people directly involved in the hotel and tourism industry. Those hotel employees eat, shop, rent houses, and help keep Phuket's domestic economy afloat.

Remove tourists and expats from the equation, and the majority of Phuket businesses will struggle to stay afloat - even the ones that only deal with other Thais.

meh

5 hours ago, garyk said:

Hope you expats have some DEEP pockets, you are going to need it in a very few years to live in Thailand.

Without any tourism revenues, the Thai baht will be much weaker. Expats may be feeling much wealthier in 6-12 months.

2 hours ago, garyk said:

I am curious, how much does it cost to spend 14 days in quarantine in Thailand?

For the current cheapest Phuket hotel its 100,000 baht, but some cheaper hotels have applied to be Phuket ASQ hotels. Maybe 50,000 baht for a month in Phuket by October.

The cheapest non-Phuket hotel is 28,000 baht.

9 hours ago, hansnl said:

And it is so simple to debunk the ideas about retirees.

Say 250,000 retirees, some married, some single.

On average bringing inti the country 50,000 Baht, per month that is.

The total sum is not a pimple on the end of anything.

A former governor of a province once said that every retiree is good for 1.4 jobs.

But, the total amount is spread around, doesn't come into the greedy purses of the rich.

And that is a no-no.

50,000 x 12 = 600,000 baht ($19,000 USD) a year

$19,000 x 250,000 = $4.75 Billion USD a year.

I'd personally say that these numbers are on the low side. Even with these conservative figures, expat foreign exchange receipts since the 1997 financial crisis would add up to more than $100B USD - a nice chunk of Thailand's current $250B foreign reserves.

The Bank of Thailand will be well aware of the scale of expat contributions to the Thai economy.

7 hours ago, thaibestlover said:

Where to apply? 

Where do you normally apply for visas? You know, that big building full of Thai people, stamps and passports?

You could try applying for a visa at that place .... ????

40 minutes ago, warcy said:

How are they going to decide who gets those 1200 visas per month if the number of application exceed?

They might decide to increase the number of available visas.

16 hours ago, Henryford said:

How about Phuket's favourite event - who can rip off the most from tourists.

Or Pattaya's favourite event - which monger can run their mouth the fastest?

2 hours ago, Kenosha2015 said:

Additional thoughts regarding the burdensome USD 100,000 medical policy to be required, which I presume is for all tourists, I suggest the following consideration. Perhaps each incoming tourist could be assessed a small fee ( perhaps B300) similar to the Departure tax fee, into each international airline ticket.

Unpaid medical bills only add up to 12 baht per tourist. Your solution would certainly work, but there's a problem:

Quote

Chalermpong said Vachira Phuket Hospital proposed a different solution: collecting $1 from every tourist who enters Phuket and using the money to pay off unpaid expenses. He said policymakers balked at this over concerns about who would make decisions on who gets the money.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Asia-Insight/Tourism-proves-hazardous-to-Thai-hospitals-financial-health

10 hours ago, BigStar said:

The clownish TAT appears to have angered the authoritative TAT: TVF by committing at least one legal offence and lots of economic hocus-pocus.

COPYRIGHT VIOLATION

First, the TAT chief has plagiarized a copyrighted TVF Doom Revelation.

No sooner had the virus appeared than our doomsters immediately knocked back a few Changs, maybe puffed some good weed, and hit the ol’ keyboards to peck out exactly this: nothing will be the same again.^©2020 TVFDR. It covered Thailand, the world, and the entire solar system out to Uranus.

Now that Revelation can ONLY be uttered by an authentic TVF Doomster to impress the peanut gallery with his profundity and gain forum cred. Hence it’s been uttered a couple of times in this thread already.

Shame on the TAT chief, trying to steal credit and appear profound himself!????

MAIN PROBLEM

 

Oh, there's much worse. Main problem that he’s dared ignore the beneficent fabulously wealthy Golden Egg Layers (GEL) who built Thailand and are even now the pillars of entire economy. But starting in 2003 with the INSANE rise in visa fees, the GEL all began heading for the exits like rats deserting a sinking ship. Since then--long before COVID--Thailand’s been returning to the Stone Age, Thais all leaving the cities to work in rice fields.

So Thais have been merely shuffling the remaining few Golden Eggs around, building an empty Siam Paragon here, a T21 there. But TVF Economists know that you can only slice a Fixed Pie so many times! There's no increase in population, exports, GDP, and income from any other tourists in Thailand. Now my friend's Chinese girlfriend did spend B30,000 the other day on a new designer purse, but, you know, musta been counterfeit. 

WRONG SOLUTION

We all know that Thailand needs to end the lockdown & all quarantines immediately, stop the mask wearing, fix the exchange rate at 100 baht/GBPeso, and offer free perpetual tourist visas and beer. Only this can lure the Big Spending Golden Egg Layers back to the now-empty luxurious fan rooms on Soi Buakhao and restore prosperity for all.

 

But the TAT chief has come up with two utterly useless ideas! Whatta clown.

1. Domestic tourism – TAT: TVF has never recognized this nonsensical concept. It worked for Blackpool but will NOT for Thailand. Why? Thais have no money, just eat som tum and drink Sangsom.

2. Non-Golden Egg Layer targeted international tourism – WOT? Did the TAT chief really say this: Northeast Asia and the ASEAN countries, with a customer target of people in good health and high-purchasing power. Healthy? No COVID? That target works for Italy and the Italians certainly target them. But THAILAND? Even though they’re in the same neighborhood? No, TAT: TVF knows that Chinese don’t spend in Thailand. They know this

 

• via the Clairvoyant Eyeballs, that see no Chinese or Thais in the beer bars;
• by pretending that zero baht tours weren’t banned in 2016; and
• by ignoring the 60% Chinese FITs.

Other NE Asians and ASEANs look like Thais or Chinese, and Japan & Korea aren’t on the TAT: TVF world map anyway, so they don’t spend, either--though a few years back CPN’s corporate report specifically mentioned Korean and Chinese spending at the Hilton. I dunno why I kept seeing Edge at the Hilton filled with Chinese. You know, all spitting on the floor etc.

And finally, that outrageous impermissible reassurance:

3. The pain will end – HA. TVF Doomsters have NOT yet specified or approved any end to the pain. Maybe never. There’s got to be eye-for-an-eye, you see. The sins against farang—ONLY farang—have been myriad and grave. There’s been sh.i.t like that insulting insistence on verified income rather than “I say so," which should be phoned in anyway. There’ve been degrading bank book checks and onerous 90-day reports. There’s been map drawing.

 

There’s even been that idiotic mask wearing. It's too hot for farang to wear masks, a Speedo's all that's needed anytime. Masks hide farang hansumness and violate their privileged sovereignty. TVF Virologists determined early on that we don't need no stinkin' masks in Thailand or social distancing.

 

And I won’t even start on that vast laundry list of farang hostile acts like serving runny eggs. Farang have special dietary requirements that require catering to at all times. Though Big Spenders, they also follow strict price limits as established in 1995, the Golden Era.

It may take decades, if ever, before Thais are punished enough and sufficiently servile to wipe this sorry slate clean and make farang feel loved and revered for just being themselves, as in so many other much better countries. Beautiful Spain, for example, is missing Brits terribly. Travel updates: 'Stay away', Europeans tell British tourists.

 

So: expect the return to the Stone Age to continue as expats migrate to advanced countries like Cambodia and the Philippines.

Now we’ve all sounded the alarm again, as we so often do. How come TAT don’t get it? What morons! The longer they put their heads in the sand with that cr.a.p about domestic tourists, NE Asia, and ASEAN, the longer a return to 1995 will take.  

 

That self-congratulatory twaddle must have taken you some time to write. I doubt anyone made it to the end of your post.

A 270-day tourist visa sounds like a step in the right direction to me. Few people will want to travel to Thailand on a single entry, go through expensive quarantine, and leave after 3 months.

10 years ago you could get a visa "for the purpose of visiting friends" that could let you stay in Thailand for 15 months (with 3-monthly border runs).

9 hours ago, webfact said:

Mr Thanit named the two hotels as the Metadee Phuket in Kata and the Phuket Graceland Resort & Spa in Patong.

Interesting. Those are fairly cheap hotels, about 3000/baht a night. That might add up to about 50,000 Baht for the quarantine period, with tests etc included.

11 hours ago, overherebc said:

For a long time the general statements have been 'the baht is too strong' now it would appear that the baht is getting weaker, uk £ going to 41+ ( mid rate on xe ). Does that mean the uk £ is also getting weaker? or, does it mean they are both getting stronger?

If the baht was too strong and if, as they say, it's getting weaker but stays at roughly the same rate to the dollar does that really mean they are actually getting stronger, or, they are getting weaker together.

Good question. Here's some major currencies against the Thai Baht for the last 2 months:

Thursday 2 July 2020        1 JPY = 0.28901 THB
Wednesday 2 September 2020    1 JPY = 0.29496 THB
Yen - 2.06% increase against Baht

Thursday 2 July 2020        1 USD = 31.076 THB
Wednesday 2 September 2020    1 USD = 31.328 THB
Dollar - 0.81% increase against Baht

Thursday 2 July 2020        1 GBP = 38.755 THB
Wednesday 2 September 2020    1 GBP = 41.835 THB
Pound - 7.95% increase against Baht

Thursday 2 July 2020        1 EUR = 34.933 THB
Wednesday 2 September 2020    1 EUR = 37.134 THB
Euro - 6.30% increase against Baht

Thursday 2 July 2020        1 CHF = 32.868 THB
Wednesday 2 September 2020    1 CHF = 34.384 THB
Swiss Franc - 4.61% increase against baht

Thursday 2 July 2020        1 AUD = 21.521 THB
Wednesday 2 September 2020    1 AUD = 22.984 THB
Australian Dollar - 6.80% increase against baht

The Pound, Euro and Australian Dollar are doing very well. The USD is doing poorly, but not as badly as the Baht, which has lost value to every other currency.

I don't think that there's any connection between the Baht and the US Dollar's weakness, I'd say they are both weakening but for different reasons.

whoops

How about a 6 month tourist visa?

If we're going to spend 16 days in quarantine in an expensive hotel at our own expense, it would be nice if Thailand were willing to give something back.

I expect Ranong-based poster of the year 2019 Yinn will be along soon to tell us how the storm affected her town ...

8 hours ago, stuarty said:

The Kamala naval gazing myopia never ceases to amaze me. Also excluding Bangtao, Chengtalay, Mai Khao, Nai Yang/Sakoo etc etc...

Yes, I love going to Cherngtalay Beach to gaze at the naval vessels ...

Interesting. Most threads involving immigration have people throwing accusations of "racism" around. One poster claimed that "Brexiteers" would be horrified at the prospect of Hongkongers coming to the UK.

But there hasn't been any racism in this thread - but lots of posts broadly welcoming an influx of foreigners. Good to see thaivisa posters in broad agreement this time.