Thai cabinet agrees to waive visa on arrival fee until October

[webfact]

Thai cabinet agrees to waive visa on arrival fee until October

 

Picture: Thai Rath

 

Thailand’s cabinet on Wednesday approved to extend the waiver of the fee for visa on arrival for some foreign tourists to Thailand.

 

The waiver of the 2,000 baht Visa on Arrival: VOA fee will be extended from May 1st to October 31st.

 

The fee had previously been waived from Nov 15 2018 to Jan 14 2019 in a bid to boost tourism. It was then extended until April 30 and has now been extended again.

 

Thairath reported that waiving the VOA fee had helped with an increase in the number of foreigners visiting Thailand.

 

Between Nov 15 to March 31, 3.58 million foreigners visited Thailand, an increase of 83 percent compared to the 1.6 million visitors during the same period in the previous year.

 

Thairath also reported that while waiving the VOA fee resulted government losing 2.95 billion baht in revenue, it helped to draw more foreign tourists who generated 104.616 billion baht in tourism revenue.

 

Visa on arrival is available to tourists from 21 countries and regions, including China and India.

 

Source: Thai Rath

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2019-04-25

[shady86]

Looks like the country is desperate. I would not recommend tourists to come here as the country doesn't welcome long term visa holders with some new crazy rules.

[kandi]

22 minutes ago, shady86 said:

Looks like the country is desperate. I would not recommend tourists to come here as the country doesn't welcome long term visa holders with some new crazy rules.

Tourists != long term visitors.

[RotBenz8888]

51 minutes ago, webfact said:

Thairath reported that waiving the VOA fee had helped with an increase in the number of foreigners visiting Thailand.

And the expensive Baht doesn't have any bad impact at all, i take it?

[Topdoc]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

waiving the VOA fee resulted government losing 2.95 billion baht in revenue, it helped to draw more foreign tourists who generated 104.616 billion baht in tourism revenue.

So to summarise: 

1. With the VOA the government revenue decreases by Baht 2.95 billion

2. Without the VOA the tourism revenue increases by Baht 104 billion

If these numbers are correct, the VOA fee acts as a massive and illogical burden on the tourism sector

[DLock]

"Between Nov 15 to March 31, 3.58 million foreigners visited Thailand, an increase of 83 percent compared to the 1.6 million visitors during the same period in the previous year."

 

That period is 4.5 months and Thailand visitors were 3.58million visitors?

 

It's also the high season, so presumably the biggest period.

 

If I use simps math and multiple that be 3, it is 10.7miilion visitors for the year - that doesn't seem right, and would seem to make the target of 41million tourists a little shaky.

 

...and the 1.6million in the same period the previous year...?

 

what did I miss?

[Nip]

3 hours ago, DLock said:

"Between Nov 15 to March 31, 3.58 million foreigners visited Thailand, an increase of 83 percent compared to the 1.6 million visitors during the same period in the previous year."

 

That period is 4.5 months and Thailand visitors were 3.58million visitors?

 

It's also the high season, so presumably the biggest period.

 

If I use simps math and multiple that be 3, it is 10.7miilion visitors for the year - that doesn't seem right, and would seem to make the target of 41million tourists a little shaky.

 

...and the 1.6million in the same period the previous year...?

 

what did I miss?

They make it up.

[Eligius]

35 minutes ago, Nip said:

They make it up.

Thailand - from top to bottom - is all lies and deceit.

Simple as that!

[Peterbilt]

4 hours ago, Topdoc said:

1. With the VOA the government revenue decreases by Baht 2.95 billion

Hmmmmm........
Lets do some very basic maths:
A VOA comes at a fee of 2,000 BHT
Gov looses 2.95 bn BHT due to the waiver of that fee from May 1st until October 31st
2,950,000,000 / 2,000 = 1,450,000
So they expect just 1.45 million tourists from countries eligble for VOA, mainly the two heavyweights India and China.
Only 1.45 millions? In 6 months?
And they are claiming to have about 40 millions in 2019??
 

According to that chart, tourists from India and China count for more than 61% of Thailands visitors.


Now think for yourself......

[ubon farang]

Question How can the Cabinet make any decisions Should it not be in a caretaker role until the election is declared Or they already know the results? Guess it doesn't matter if nobody voted for them they would still win A dictatorship 

 

[BuckBee]

Well the recouping some of the loss from fines on white folk with tm30 crimes ????

Yellow is the favourite colour ...

[Mavideol]

7 hours ago, webfact said:

Thairath also reported that while waiving the VOA fee resulted government losing 2.95 billion baht in revenue, it helped to draw more foreign tourists who generated 104.616 billion baht in tourism revenue.

TAT just make up numbers, never provided supporting data, as always fake news, if that was coherent thus easy solution, forget about the visa burden and just let people come in and spend or is there something missing on the report

[LongTang]

Next logical step, waive all TM30 reporting for good !

[Knocker33]

This so called forum site has come nothing more than a prapadander rag for TAT and the relative agencies. 

[Woolsgibb60]

Yes at why u are paying .more for the tourist Visa from £130 to £150  so they are just milking u 

[Paul Henry]

Can somebody enlighten me what is a prapadander rag? Is it a newspaper that pandars to the Government.

[Pib]

The govt is using black hole mathematics where normal laws of mathematics and physics do not apply.   The govt deserves a Nobel Price in Creative Statistics. 

[dcnx]

2 hours ago, Eligius said:

Thailand - from top to bottom - is all lies and deceit.

Simple as that!

You forgot inside and out.

[BMJ]

I must be missing something. Free Visa I'm heading to Thailand, can't miss out on that deal.

Really people would make a travel decision based on a Free Visa. Has to be more to it than that. 

[StayinThailand2much]

On 4/25/2019 at 5:09 PM, DLock said:

"Between Nov 15 to March 31, 3.58 million foreigners visited Thailand, an increase of 83 percent compared to the 1.6 million visitors during the same period in the previous year."

 

That period is 4.5 months and Thailand visitors were 3.58million visitors?

 

It's also the high season, so presumably the biggest period.

 

If I use simps math and multiple that be 3, it is 10.7miilion visitors for the year - that doesn't seem right, and would seem to make the target of 41million tourists a little shaky.

 

...and the 1.6million in the same period the previous year...?

 

what did I miss?

It is finally revealed how Thailand counts its visitors; with a probable average stay these days of 4 days × 10 million visitors, that's how the TAT dreams up the number of "41 million visitors"! - Not surprising in a country, where even bank branch managers cannot count (own experience), and where, at minimarts, they need a calculator to find the sum of 15 baht and 27 baht... ????

[stevenl]

How do they know the waiver caused the increase?

 

Imo the major group affected by via are the Chinese. Mostly group packages booked in advance. It will be the touroperator pocketing these waived fees.

[gunderhill]

Population of Earth = 7.7  billion, visitors to  Thailand 8.7  billion