bkk_bwana

10 hours ago, Gsxrnz said:

 

It also begs the question of why they want a copy of the vaccine certificate and passport, when they have used this very information themselves to populate the necessary fields in the app.

 

Muppets.

You are half right. If you are Thai, you will not have not registered with your passport. The program is initially designed to be for Thai people, that is to be expected. There are a lot more Thai people travelling overseas than foreigners. Two photocopies, big deal. It's bureaucracy like that over the whole of Asia; get over it.

31 minutes ago, ikke1959 said:

I have already a yellow vaccine passport for many years, but the hospital refused to fill in the vaccination and only gave me a vaccinationcertificte.... Again a money scam???

50 Baht?  For a government issued document. A scam? Really?

On 10/18/2021 at 12:01 PM, JonnyF said:

My Mor Phrom app says I am only single vaxxed, despite having a certificate to confirm that I am double vaxxed. Will they ever create an app that works? Surely it's not that difficult.

It is actually. 

That picture of Wat Khu Samut Cin is misleading. The northern gulf of Thailand is a flood plain/delta. That land has been reclaimed from the sea for fish farming by putting up bunds for a long time. There is even evidence of power cables out at sea, showing where the land used to reach. But this is reclaimed land that is no longer worked. Obviously they have preserved the temple, as the picture shows. This is not a global warming story.

Several people here are asking why Kasikorn bank's research division are commenting on tourism. Well, they are a bank. Every major bank around the world has a research department. That's one of the things banks do. They research all kinds of things for clients and their own investments. They send out daily reports to their commercial and investment clients.

There is a very simple solution to this. A separate credit card, with a low credit limit, for online use only. Never use a debit card for buying things online and never link your bank account to PayPal, link it to that same low-credit line card.

I think that they have thought this through. Think about the potential number of visitors. In November 2019, there were 3.3 million tourism arrivals in the kingdom. How many people will now start to arrive, in 12 days? How many people will be willing to travel? How many countries allow quarantine free return right now? ASEAN contributed to about 2/3 of visitors to Thailand. How many ASEAN countries allow home return without quarantine? Answer, as of today - none of them.  So that pretty much rules out nearly all visitors from ASEAN countries. Do I need to go on?

This November 1st opening does not mean that the country will fill up with visitors overnight. I suspect that here will be a slow and gradual increase of people over several months as countries round the world vaccinate more of their people and relax their own rules for entry. Likewise, as time goes on, Thailand will have vaccinated more of its people.   When that happens, and as economies begin to pick up, the arrivals will return.

The big question for me is will we ever get back to the numbers we were used to seeing?
 

(https://www.mots.go.th/mots_en/download/TourismStatistics/6_62Dec24Nov2019article_20191224133042_1.xlsx)

1 hour ago, fangless said:

So is it only Thais that are risk of losing their money and if so why is that?

 

The story is referring to several scammy promotions going round, in Thai language, on social media and advertising aimed at Thai people. That was not made clear by the article. 

5 hours ago, ChrisY1 said:

There's no end to the make believe coming from these people IMO.   

Sorry to inform you that your IMO is wrong. This not make believe. BOI is one of the best Government agencies. They have done an excellent job of encouraging foreign investment in Thailand. Most of all those factories mile after mile up on the eastern seaboard are BOI investment businesses, for example. All those businesses that drive over 50% of GDP in this country.

6 minutes ago, mikebell said:

Why are companies queueing up to surrender 51% control to Thais?

They aren't. That's the whole point of being a BOI investment company. 100% foreign ownership. A whole range of businesses qualify with up to 10 years corporate tax break depending on what your business is. Free to apply and only a limited amount of paperwork to fill in with huge advantages for the investor.

1 hour ago, hotchilli said:

Will Anutin reciprocate by taking the UK off Thailands red list?

Thailand doesn't have a colour list for other countries. Nearly all countries have been treated the same since this started - 14 days quarantine, then sandbox, now 7 days or sandbox. Like it or not, Thailand has been pretty consistent in its rules for entry. A lot more consistent than the UK. 

15 minutes ago, Bkk Brian said:

I had a look there yesterday and could not find any metrics to support that figure. Besides 2019 is irrelevant to now when the Chinese market is gone for the foreseeable future and Thailand has to rely on other nations. 

 

for example in the first month of the Phuket Sandbox UK arrivals were the third highest after the US and returning Thai’s.

 

Prayut himself predicted 500,000 arrivals from the UK, Russia and Nordic countries, this is obviously their current target market. Not that the target figure he mentioned will be met.

The figures are all there. 2.5% average for the year as a % of UK tourists compared to total number. Figures hovering around the 80k/month numbers. Overall about 1M visitors. 2019 is the only dataset that can be used as a realistic benchmark, i.e. how it was before the pandemic. Arguments regarding effects of exchange rate are short term and only affect a small number of travelers.

11 minutes ago, Cherrytreeview said:

Your quoted an exact annual figure.

Where's the link to that figure?

 

 

If you drill down into the links you will see lists of arrivals, by country, month by month.

17 hours ago, Cherrytreeview said:

Got a link for that figure.

https://www.mots.go.th/mots_en/more_news_new.php?cid=330

17 hours ago, peter48 said:

I think that was partly to do with rising airfairs & falling pound. Recall when crazy Johnson took over in summer 2019 the pound only got what 37 baht. Horrific for tourists - it has to be rembered whatevers happens worldwide Brexit exacerbates things in UK and yes in summer 2019 there seemed few Brits around 

Go back two years to 2017 and when the Baht was sitting at 44 to the GBP, Brits still made up only 2.7% of visitors. The number of Brits coming has been growing, but over the last 20 years, as a percentage of arrivals has been swamped by arrivals from other nations. 

20 hours ago, khunPer said:

If foreigners shall be allowed to own property - i.e. a condo beyond the 49 percent limit, or a small plot of land under en certain limit, which for example could be half a rai that is similar size to many a home-plot around the World, or whatever is reasonable - then in my modest opinion, there should be a claim of not more than one home per foreigner, and that the foreigner shall live in the home at least 180 days during a calendar year, to avoid property speculation. In other words, it's homes for foreigners that wish to live in the nation, which also might make it more attractive for foreigners to settle, and even pay some taxes, i.e. at least the small property tax, and v.a.t. from their consumption. The latter can be quite a lot of tax from some foreigners...????

Sensible approach. I like the 180 days per year concept.

8 hours ago, Metapod said:

No. taxation is theft.

 

Do you think the government does a good job spending tax money? 

 

you have to be a serious boot licker to think an additional tax is great.

I did not say additional. I said people should pay taxes.
"Taxation is theft".  Shall we start with the paying for building of roads, maintenance, bridges, irrigation first. We can then move onto education, defense, other public services. 

2 hours ago, hotchilli said:

I asked my Thai friend who is a "win taxi rider" how much tax do you pay...

he said 7%, VAT...

LOL

Grey zone non-tax payers then put their hand out for subsidies.

12 hours ago, clokwise said:

Agreed, but let's not kid ourselves, it's us, their customers, who will be paying that 7% tax.

Correct. Nothing wrong with that.