DonniePeverley

Oh great just what we need ... more Chinese tourists.

Never chose a female agent.

Because it sits next to a nation where the population is desperate to hide their money.

Utter nonsense. Singapore has a population of 6 million (compared to Thailand's 70 million), and took the British laws left in place with some strong leadership to make a success - mainly a financial centre where the local Chinese could hide their money. You simply cannot compare it to Thailand. Malaysia was in the pits like Thailand (with half the population) - however it did have established industries and a workforce that the British set up during colonialism, and then oil / Petrons has taken it to another level.

Historically Thailand has always protected it's population from outside capitalism. But recent measures seem to me anyways abandoning that - first we are set on the path for extreme mass tourism, which will harm the way of life. See how locals in Japan, and many European countries are fighting back against mass tourism as their local towns are desimated. Then we have new rules outlining foreigners maybe allowed to stay longer - which as seen by the Russians will drive up prices and push locals out. Now we have the latest measures. You already know what's going to happen. It's been a disgraceful few months, and i'm quite surprised there's been no push back in the political circles.

I don't know much about him - but what are his policies and say his stance on Nana PLaza and Soi Cowboy ?

It's completely out of control at the moment. A mixture of Thai's operating a very soft approach and visitors taking advantage of the hospitality. I blame Russians, Brexit loving British types, and out of control Indians.

Attract cheap mass tourists then wonder why high spending tourists have gone elsewhere. Their Thai solution is clearly going to be allow even more tourists to enter. I predict an open door policy for Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq coming up to bolster even more tourists number higher.

Give me a break with this one

You are kidding me aren't you ? There is no justification for those busses. I have travelled in the depths of Africa, and not a single bus there emits black smoke like the ones they have here. They've turned alot of the busses into electric, and some are clearly much cleaner, but the big dangerous red ones are brutal if you get stuck behind one.

They still have the dangerous red busses out there emitting black smoke !!!! GET RID OF THEM FIRST !!!!

They will smash over 40 million visitors this year. Mass cheap tourism, which will inflict an ecological damage to the country. The chase for 'quality tourism' has gone. Instead the new mantra is just let everyone in and stay. Disgraceful.

I am not shocked the prime minster is a real estate tycoon. It can explain the changes to visiting, mass tourism and the new home owning rules. There seems little regard to the local population (which Thailand has always done).

Mass cheap tourism from China and India turns away high spending tourists from 'higher spending regions'. Thailand looks at one sole number - volume of tourists. It does not look at other factors like 'quality tourists' who will spend more. What happened to quality tourism by the way ? Mass tourism is not only an enviromental disaster, but it turns away tourists to other regions. For the first time i've decided not to travel to Phuket this winter, and head to the Caribbean where things are still pretty much elite. Why would i want to holiday surrounded by a few hundred Indian tourists who are on holiday for their first time and still struggling to adapt to behaving with decorum that we take for granted, or having to share a buffer breakfast with Chinese tourists who will stamp on your head to empty the buffet all on one plate.

One tanglible benefit of Brexit please? My sister used to export easily to Europe. No longer. She now has to fill massive forms to get products into that market, and furthermore to import things she needs. It's ridiculous. No other country puts up barriers up to trade because the population has racists.

Not really, just like the asylum seekers you complain about - many 'immigrants' (the term expat is highly offensive) also game the system with visa runs, etc

Before Brexit, if an asylum application was refused, you could send them straight back to France as being part of the EU meant we had that deal in place. Why do you think this asylum number has become a major issue now? It's because we can now not send them back. That is why we are now scrambling around looking for other countries like Rawanda - which is a mess in itself. Secondly, under Labour asylum applications used to be done in a few weeks. Why is it now taking over a year? Theoretically, you could do an ayslum case in a couple of days (even in a day if you wanted to be tough). Personally, i think the Tory's may have thought this type of electrioneering rhetoric against immigration would work in their benefit. If anything it has completely backfired, because they have failed to deliver. The Tory party works best when they stay in the centre right of the political ground. A balanced explanation why some immigration benefits the country, whilst illegal immigration and huge numbers should not be tolerated. Instead they have become so fearful of Farage, Brexit Party, UkIP, that they veered harsh to the far right and we had a catastrophic Brexit. They learnt nothing and did it again, and this time we could see the end of the party.

Have you seen the drunk British immigrants in Pattaya. Most of them drunk sex tourists, taking advantage of Thai women. Ah ya see, you don't like that comparison.

Net loss from Brexit has been 140 Billion so far. Yet we are meant to trust Farage again ? Totally nuts some people.

There has never been any period in Thai history where they have attempted to attract quality tourism. There has been no concerted effort to tackle the infrustructure projects on islands, no attempt to end corrupt practices like the taxi situation, no attempt to have a proper tourist structure for hotels in keeping quality practises. Nothing. They did talk of resetting before covid, as locals were becoming annoyed at the sheer mass tourist levels which had reached record levels, and are now heading in same direction with this years numbers - albeit they always have a bit of a moan during low season. Opening up the border and giving long term visiting rites to masses of countries is only going to create more of a problem. Tourists who will spend top dollar will not be coming to Thailand.

Nonsense of the highest order. The answer is not MORE cheap mass tourism. Do research on tourism itself. Some regions can brand themselves into luxury getaways (see regions of the Caibbean like Barbados, Aruba, St Lucia even some in Asia like Maldives, maybe even to a certain extent Hawaii, even if it isn't). Thailand has some beautiful islands, some beautiful natural beauty, and a rich historical culture. If you aim for cheap mass influx, you turn away quality high spending tourists who will not venture to these cheap packed out places. However, to do this you have to clean the places up from corruption, improved infrustructure, airports of international standards with lounges etc, have security standards, weed away the dross visitors. Otherwise what happens is you are then permanently addicted to cheap mass tourism. Go look at Bali as a prime example. Back 10-15 years ago Bali was a classy upscale dream like place to visit for many around the world. However, the place got hooked on wanting more and more visitors. Eventually it turned away the quality spending tourists because of how busy it had become, so as a result the island then had to lure in more and more people to compensate for the loss of the high spending visitors. It was a an enviromental disaster for the region. Go to Bali now - it's a dump, full of cheap mass tourists. I don't want these beautiful places in Thailand to head down the same path as Bali, suffer from the mass enviromental disaster, and just be addicted to cheap mass tourism. This isn't going into the effect for the local population. As we see hear, when you import cheap mass tourism you get crime, you get annoying alcohol consumed violence, and so on and so on. You then allow long term visitors to stay which pushes locals out, and so forth. I tell you somewhere that is punching above it's weight and that is Sri Lankam with a similar rich culture and beautiful landscape. It has really cleaned up it's image. Hell it even kicked out the Russians staying on long term visas. The resorts are expensive, not a cheap backpacker in site. They can charge nearly 3-4 times more than what Thailand charges for similar resorts, because there is no dross there.

Always a balance. Clean up the system and have better quality visitors. Could even up a 'esta' type system to verify visitor does not have a criminal record before visiting.

Visa restrictions eased, allowing more to stay long term. In my opinion the big thing is cannabis. Short term it's okay, but prolonged long term smoking here really does mess people up.

I still have the old red passport. It says the United Kingdom and European Union on it. Clearly you are being pedantic and you know what i meant. Immediatley after the Brexit vote, he went and applied for a German passport. Why was the need for that when he didn't live there? Do you believe austerity, Brexit, banking crisis, the pandemic costs, the Truss budget etc have had any effects on the issues you complained about? Or is everything the fault of immigrants? Because if you once again just say 'immigrants' - then facts don't matter to you, and in that scenario then you clearly have certain issues.

Unfortunately he's found a set of really thick people in Clacton who are going to vote him in this time. They had the highest share of Brexit vote during the referendum too. Once MP his rhetoric will then have weight behind it. The media laps it all up. We will have to put up with endless whinging for years to come (just like we had to with UKIP). Clearly he will join the Conservative party after that. The danger is then if the old members (who are pretty xenophobic anyways) will make him leader. That will be the closest this country has ever had to a far right leader. I still can't see a single benefit of his beloved Brexit.