Visa For Tour Leader In S.e Asia

[piaf]

i am based in Thailand from October to May where i am tour leader in Laos, Burma and sometime Thailand for a French tour operator based in Lyon.

so far i used to go back and forth to Laos/Myanmar with a Thai tourist visa valid 1 month on arrival. so far no problem.

now if i must stay longer than a month in Thailand when there is no group, what kind of visa should i apply for.

can the travel agency issue a document in order to get a multiple entry visa without work permit?

thank you for your advices

Daniel (from Nonthaburi)

[soandso]

In my opinion you will need a work permit anyway if you do work in Thailand and I'm afraid you worked illegally before when you used a tourist visa.

But it's very difficult to get a work permit as a foreigner in the tourism industries anyway. Working as a tour guide is off limits to foreigners and if you are a tour leader a company in Thailand will have to provide you with all legal documents (non-immigrant B visa & work permit) which you can't get yourself.

My advice: come on a tourist visa, get it renewed twice and make it not longer than 90 days (in 6 months) and most importantly keep a low profile and whatever you are doing as "group leader" ...

[otherstuff1957]

Read item number 34 & weep!

Annex attached to the Royal Decree

Prescribing works relating to occupation and professional in which an alien is prohibited to engage B.E.2522

1. Manual work

2. Work in agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry or fishery excluding specialized work in each particular branch or farm supervision

3. Bricklaying, carpentry or other construction works

4. Wood carving

5. Driving mechanically propelled carried or driving non-mechanically-propelled vehicle, excluding international aircraft piloting

6. Shop attendance

7. Auction

8. Supervising, auditing or giving service in accountancy excluding internal auditing on occasions

9. Cutting or polishing jewelry

10. Haircutting, hairdressing or beauty treatment

11. Cloth weaving by hand

12. Weaving of mate or making products from reeds, rattan, hemp, straw or bamboo pellicle

13. Making of Sa paper by hand

14. Lacquer ware making

15. Making of Thai musical instrument

16. Niello ware making

17. Making of products from gold, silver or gold-copper alloy

18. Bronze ware making

19. Making of Thai dolls

20. Making of mattress or quilt blanket

21. Alms bowls casting

22. Making of silk products by hand

23. Casting of Buddha images

24. Knife making

25. Making of paper of cloth umbrella

26. Shoemaking

27. Hat Making

28. Brokerage or agency excluding brokerage or agency in international trade business

29. Engineering work in civil engineering branch concerning designing and calculation, organization, research, planning, testing, construction supervision or advising excluding specialized work

30. Architectural work concerning designing, drawing of plan, estimating, construction directing or advising

31. Garments making

32. Pottery or ceramic ware making

33. Cigarette making by hand

34. Guide or conducting sightseeing tours

35. Street Vending

36. Type setting of Thai characters by hand

37. Drawing and twisting silk-thread by hand

38. Office or secretarial work

39. Legal or lawsuit services

(copied from some other TV post!)

[astral]

34. Guide or conducting sightseeing tours

Of course there are more than enough Thai tour guides who speak fluent French.........

Putting that aside, you are at risk of arrest and deportation for working as tour guide in Thailand!!

Perhaps a work permit as a tour/travel consultant or some similar acceptable title??

[peteg68]

Well, it is legally accepted and will be accepted to work as a group leader in Thailand for foreign companies providing tourists in to the country. This means you are as a representative of a touroperator based outside of Thailand and you have allways a licenced Thai Guide with you. There are hundreds of us working here on these positions, and work permit is easily obtained when you have 'non B' visa. Only thing is that you are not allowed to conduct as a Tour Guide - but you can allways translate what a Licenced Guide tells, and in Bus many Licensed Guides act as 'silent guides'. That way we have a win - win situation: Representatives give the service their guests desire in their own languages and Licensed Guides have work.

This is based on the fact there are not enough Guides in Thailand to cater the needs of specific languages, therefore the touroperators usually either send a Representative with the group or base a few Representatives in to the country, who usually wil get automatically Work Permits when applied.

Problematic in this is there are many Tourleaders/Representatives in country, who have not any possibility to obtain wp due to the fact travel companies here do not employ enough local staff permanently or the turnovers are not big enough. (f.ex TUI nordic has more than 50 foreign representatives in country, that means their local agent should employ more than 200 thai staff permanently and have a profit of 25.000.000 thb a fiscal year just to employ these foreign representatives, which is hardly the case in tourism business with small local agents )

So, what you need to do is to get the Visa correct, ask your local agent to check what is the situation from legal company, f.ex sunbelt here has all needed knowlegde what, where, when and how, and the process is quite painless. Also, if you do worke here only few days a week with a group who goes out of the country and you go with them, usually work permit is not needed in that case, if you work only for groups who you join with as a group leader - or if you come to country with the group and act as a group leader few times a year, but if you do this all the time, you need wp. With tourist visa you are not allowed to work even a day in thailand, unnless you have left with the group from original destination and leave with the group to final destination - then you officially do not work, you only translate as agroup leader for those who did not understand.

[sniffdog]

Correct, you may accompany the tour if there is a legal licensed Thai guide coming along.

[SamuiRep]

i am based in Thailand from October to May where i am tour leader in Laos, Burma and sometime Thailand for a French tour operator based in Lyon.

so far i used to go back and forth to Laos/Myanmar with a Thai tourist visa valid 1 month on arrival. so far no problem.

now if i must stay longer than a month in Thailand when there is no group, what kind of visa should i apply for.

can the travel agency issue a document in order to get a multiple entry visa without work permit?

thank you for your advices

Daniel (from Nonthaburi)

hi daniel,

i has these kind of problems in the begins, before i get a non b visa & the WP, when i found a work opportunity, likely yours, but for turkish customers from turkey. i am now the representative of the travel operator from turkey here in thailand, but i still can not make any transfer from the airport to the hotel, i even can not hold the Board of the Company at the airport, for welcome our customers. this all must make my local assistant. but at the airport are a lot of farangs, who makes transfers or pickup customers.

i think, they all make dangerous things with making this....

the excursions we have, makes other local travel agencies, or when i make VIP excursions with a private Limousine, then i have my assistant with me.

my workpermit gives me the right, to work in the Office, ONLY IN THE OFFICE, said my lawyer...

good luck,

Samui Rep

[Sunbelt Asia]

Problematic in this is there are many Tourleaders/Representatives in country, who have not any possibility to obtain wp due to the fact travel companies here do not employ enough local staff permanently or the turnovers are not big enough. (f.ex TUI nordic has more than 50 foreign representatives in country, that means their local agent should employ more than 200 thai staff permanently and have a profit of 25.000.000 thb a fiscal year just to employ these foreign representatives, which is hardly the case in tourism business with small local agents )

I like to point out, this ratio is only if they want to get a extension of stay based on business. If they desire to get a work permit, then they do not need 4 Thai staff per work permit. (Just the Thai guide to work with the rep)

So, what you need to do is to get the Visa correct, ask your local agent to check what is the situation from legal company, f.ex sunbelt here has all needed knowlegde what, where, when and how, and the process is quite painless.

Thank you for mentioning us. Much appreciated.

think, they all make dangerous things with making this....

the excursions we have, makes other local travel agencies, or when i make VIP excursions with a private Limousine, then i have my assistant with me.

my workpermit gives me the right, to work in the Office, ONLY IN THE OFFICE, said my lawyer...

Your lawyer can file a application, after you have gotten this work permit, explaining the clients are outside the office and not just at the office. On page 22 of the work permit, it will give the permission for the work permit holder to "work outside the office in the Koh Samui area."

www.sunbeltasiagroup.com