kinyara

I think it's because the guys that live here are the chilled out ones content with their lives, given the lack of jumpers in the last 3 years I draw the conclusion they are unhinged tourists dreading going back to where they came from after a few weeks in paradise.

Mr 10,000,000th arrived on 10th December, which given the official published numbers means they've averaged 71k a day since Nov 1st. With 21 days to go another 1 million is odds on.

20 million in 2023 even without the Chinese seems realistic given the monthly rate they are now reaching. Easily achievable.

I wouldn't want to look stupid in their eyes advising anything other than the Elite Visa since it is specifically designed for their situation. What on earth would you advise ?

TAT don't produce the figures, that's not their responsibility.

Poor old Rooster, a Spurs fan as well. ????

In fairness to England they beat Iran, Wales and Senegal, and scraped a draw against a team that can't even get the name of the sport correct. Fantastic World Cup for them.????

Yeah I've got both an older 8" Huawei and the newer 10" with keyboard which I prefer to use when travelling for simple photo editing rather than carrying a larger heavier laptop. For the price I think they are great value and have proved totally reliable. The software related restrictions imposed on the company make them less attractive these days but the staff at Banana IT, who are always brilliant in my experience, set up the necessary app workaround for me so I can have access to the key apps. I'd probably look at Xiaomi in future at a similar price level.

Got to be an element of natural wastage, older people I know directly or by association from a long time here seem to be passing away on a fairly regular basis in the last couple of years. I've just seen someone post on a Pattaya facebook page that Darren the owner of Key Visa here in Pattaya has died which is a big shock, I'm sure a fair few on here will have used his services over the years. Very sad, nice, professional, helpful guy.

I wonder if the popular alternatives will actually be eligible by the time the election happens or will the Election Commission have found some spurious grounds for taking them out the equation.

Jingthing, think about the vaccination process and the numbers that were going through Central, Pattaya being one of the main centres for expat residents in the country.

You'd be surprised how few retirees are actually here and how irrelevant the number is in the overall scheme of things. You surely saw that in Jomtien during Covid, you could almost recognise all the expats you saw on a daily basis. I read an interview with the Head of Thai Immigration during Covid and he commented on how the number of retirees had declined in the last few years, I'm sure the figure he quoted was only 60k nationally, it really was surprisingly low.

Why give him the victory when he is on the retreat ? It yet again shows how weak your government is and its lack of moral compass. I'm afraid that one individual who placed herself in the firing line because of her own misdemeanours, is as usual because she's a high profile American being given a free pass over and above the far more heinous crimes of a worldwide terrorist that your country spent years and millions of dollars bringing to justice. It's nothing to do with Putin, focus on your own country's lack of backbone.

A guy America sought for years for being involved in the global supply of arms directly involved in killing their own citizens, no doubt spending tens of millions of dollars to eventually capture him funnily enough here in Thailand, and bigging up his eventual capture in an almost Escobar news scale. Versus a sportswoman who knowingly took her own illegal drugs into a foreign country. Way to go USA, you never fail to disappoint with your victories.

Absolutely brilliant, it's so funny to observe an obvious loophole becoming too big to ignore given the sudden influx of thousands young Russians, coinciding with the dodgy Chinese operators. Legitimate old codgers of the world can relax, the heat is off, we will survive. ????

Barely a coherent and intelligent observation bar two, good news stories about a gradually improving tourist market is clearly the home to the bitter and uneducated to vent their spleen.

Funny you mention that, cough cough ????

He'd have been better off calling Saul, being clearly a bit naive/trusting I really wonder if he decided it was a good idea to open up the details of his case in the public arena or he was advised to do so. Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe some degree of common ownership exists between the law firm representing him and the news outlet getting some copy from the story. At the very least any credible news outlet should highlight a vested/connected business interest in the case.

TAT are not the ones responsible for collating the actual statistics so their maths skills are irrelevant, the figures are one of the simpler economic measures to gather. They are not in the business of trying to fool a few disgruntled expats. I'd agree TAT has historically been far too optimistic with their forecasts, their forecasting skills are not great, however on this occassion they have actually been correct with their 2022 target.

If you are coming in on a tourist visa or visa exempt then you are counted as a tourist, nothing difficult to understand about that even though I didn't even mention the scenarios you now highlight. In my working life I used to come here every 2 months on leave for 25 days visa exempt effectively as my base, I don't see anything odd about being counted as a tourist every time, I was on my holiday and that's what I effectively was. Now I'm on a Non-Immigrant O Annual Extension of Stay and have to get a Re-Entry Permit if I leave to re-enter, I'm not re-entering on a tourist visa so I very much doubt I'm classified as a tourist.

Correct, crossing for work is not tourism and neither is it counted as such. I have no problem pointing out obvious falsehoods that detract from the bigger picture.

So you're going full conspiracy theory now and suggesting they've altered their methodology since re-opening because the current figures aren't the result you want to see ? You're not a Trump supporter by any chance ? Malaysia, historically Thailand's second largest tourist market doesn't supply migrant workers to Thailand, it's the other way round as the pay rates are higher in Malaysia. See my point above about trip duration also not supporting the illegal migrant worker theory. Cambodia was down at 13th in terms of tourist visitors in 2019 and Myannmar didn't even make the top 20. Even if those countries were actually all non-tourists they would be pretty insignificant in the overall scheme of things. Is there an element of cross border shopping, of course there is like any other country and that money is welcome in Thailand, it's all part of foreign inflows into the country, however it's hardly the dominant underlying reason driving the recovery of the Thai tourist industry. I presume if you and your mates crossed from the US to Mexico for a fun weekend in Tijuana you would consider yourselves tourists, why don't you consider the same is true for border country visitors to Thailand ?

Of course not and neither is the TAT Governer saying that. He's been looking at the same gradual monthly improvement in arrivals since the start of the year as I am. He's pointing out that they've hit their target earlier than expected, nothing more than that.

pea.co.th/en/Payment-Channels Non-bank options include 7-11, Big C, Tesco Lotus, Thai Post Office.

You're really only speculating without any factual information to go on. One point I'd highlight though is the average length of stay of tourists from neighbouring land border countries, Malaysia, Cambodia, Myannmar and Laos in the past has been between 5 and 7 days, it would hardly pay illegal migrant workers to be here for such a short time and if it was a major issue affecting real tourist numbers I suspect the duration figures would be massively time distorted.