Thailand to introduce 300 baht ‘tourist fee’ from January

[AquaThai]

All other countries too should do this.  But instead of 300 thb charge the Thais 400 Thb when they enter a country for tourism or any other purpose.   Whats good for one should be good for the other.  Greed rules

[Tech65]

2 hours ago, zib said:

Of course it will be included in the ticket.

Of course?

[LawrenceN]

5 minutes ago, Millcx said:

If this is being done then the legislation to ban double pricing will automatically be linked .. Yes? .. No? .. Or Stop making me laugh?

You beat me to it by about five minutes. 

[Fairynuff]

2 hours ago, EricTh said:

Why should all tourists pay for some tourist attractions that they don't want to visit or never visited?

 

Don’t forget that you’re already going to be ripped off with dual pricing.

[retsdon]

Three hundred baht is nothing in the general scheme of things, but a tourist is, by definition, already supporting the tourist industry and nobody likes to be chiselled out of cash however small the amount.

 

Cheap, tacky, and grabby - it's not a good look to be extorting money from visitors before they're even out of the airport.

[bwpage3]

This guy obviously has no clue what is going on in the rest of the world.

 

Wonder how many tourists he is counting from India?

[Skeptic7]

2 hours ago, grantbkk said:

The guy has balls.  A blatant money grab.

Quite right. This entire comedy of dunces has balls the size of boulders and brains the size of pebbles. Place used to be much loved for that and would laugh at itself. Now even sillier, but loathed for same due to the addition of arrogance, blatant greed, schemes, scams and shenanigans. 

[hotchilli]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Speaking to Thai language news site Khaosod, Thailand's Tourism and Sports Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said the 300 baht fee will go towards creation of a tourism fund that will help the tourism industry deal with other unforeseen problems or hardships in the future.

So now international tourists are expected to bail Thailand out of it's own self inflicted mire...

 

[sambum]

2 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

Brilliant timing, really.

 

 

Desperate to revive tourism, and they come out with another way to fleece them!

 

And before some Rockefeller starts spouting that it's only 300 baht, (Sorry, Pattjock - you beat me to it!) what happened to the  fee already charged to assist with the medical funds that they put in place years ago. (Thank you Thailand Ryan)

 

[Ventenio]

3 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

So now international tourists are expected to bail Thailand out of it's own self inflicted mire...

YES!!!

 

and they will!!!!  Oh they will PAY......pay, pay, pay...

 

Pattaya is like a super black hole........falang must go......must  

[VocalNeal]

2 minutes ago, sambum said:

what happened to the  fee already charged to assist with the medical funds

 

Should be like New Zealand where injuries (maybe not illnesses) resulting from tourism are free. 

But I'm not a business person involved in tourism!

Edited May 7, 2021 by VocalNeal

[Zikomat]

300 thb * 22.000.000 tourists = 6.6 bln thb

600 thb * 44.000.000 tourists = 26 bln thb

10000 thb * 100000000000 tourists = wow , I like this game

[Scouse123]

The hospital unpaid bills is just a total scam excuse to try and introduce another charge and put it on the toes of the tourist. It is nothing but a money grab attempt. To say Thailand has 40 million visitors plus and they are complaining about a loss figure of around 10-11 million GBP across the whole health system of Thailand, is ridiculous and what's more, I don't believe them.

 

My god, didn't they also add a charge for the new biometrics at the airport on to the cost price of your air ticket? Then they wanted a charge for parks and monuments to be paid for by foreigners. From what I have seen the facilities provided at these places are a joke in itself. Where does the nonsense end?

 

I have already moved considerable amounts of capital out of Thailand back to the UK, and will continue doing so. My other half's mother is now in the 80s and declining health. After the inevitable, we will seriously look at somewhere else. The numbers of fees, such as this latest one of 300 baht, as a solo individual are paltry, and not worth arguing about, but we all know multiply it by millions of visitors and it is major money.

 

Lastly, it's the constant barrage and roll out of anti foreigner sentiment by those in power who unashamedly think they garner support by stoking up the fears in the uneducated masses and deflect from their own incompetence.

 

Do the Thai government ever  wonder why they are in the background, along with Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, and not taken seriously in meetings of world leaders?

 

These places are nothing but jumped up Banana Republics.

[bluesofa]

2 minutes ago, VocalNeal said:

Should be like New Zealand where injuries (maybe not illnesses) resulting from tourism are free. 

But I'm not a business person involved in tourism!

Wouldn't that result in a boom of free STI clinics in Pattaya?

[vacajan]

2 hours ago, dcsw53 said:

Dus we hebben nu het genoegen om 45 minuten in de rij te staan voor de betaalbalie en 45 minuten om onze paspoorten te laten stempelen, klinkt goed voor mij.

 

You were already in the queue of the fast service!?

[BritManToo]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Thailand will collect 300 baht tourist fee from all international visitors arriving in the country from next January.

Why not make it 100,000bht per tourist ......... nobody will come anyway.

Can the Burmese/Cambodian workers afford 300bht?

[SymS]

Well, I guess that means free COVID-19 vaccine, right? ????

"from all international visitors". So I suppose that applies to those with a work permit already paying taxes to the social security, and most likely already having an insurance...

[Skeptic7]

2 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Why not make it 100,000bht per tourist ......... nobody will come anyway.

Can the Burmese/Cambodian workers afford 300bht?

They are "slave labor" not tourists, so they get 25% discount. ????

[new2here]

2 hours ago, dcsw53 said:

So we now have the pleasure of queuing for 45 mins for the payment counter and 45 mins to have our passports stamped, sounds good to me.

 

 

I’ll bet it’s simply added as an added element of your ticket price - hard baked into it — like the UKs APD, rtg various taxes on US origin tickets etc.

The upside is that the airlines becomes the defacto tax collector, not the RTG, and since it’s baked into prices, everyone has to show their fares with it included as well—so it will kind of “blend” into the fares 

 

not saying i agree or disagree with it, only that the actual administration of this *should* be easy as the infrastructure to do so is already in place and used for many other similar taxes/fees.

[ChrisKC]

I have never understood why Travel Insurance is not mandatory for any Traveller to a foreign country, but especially Thailand.

 

You cannot enter Thailand without it so be prepared to have to buy it here before you are allowed through the gates.

 

I feel this not an imposition but a requirement and a "peace of mind" effect that puts Tourists and Officialdom at ease in the event of anything nasty happening that the law of averages says will  occur to some!

[johnarth]

what needs to be done is they need to make a word that will stick to the boarder people so everybody knows who the officials are talking about when they talk tourists (is it someone who comes from next door or from overseas)

[AMFWolfie]

2 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

Add this to the 300 baht fee already charged to assist with the medical funds that they put in place years ago.  Whose pocket will this now go into....always a grab for money.  Just call it a Visa on Arrival fee and then you can do with it whatever the hell you want....sheesh.  Timing is everything with the Tourism schemes and then Covid.....

 

"Mr Phiphat said there was still a chance the Phuket sandbox could go ahead but cases on the island would likely need to be zero and at least 70% of the island’s population would need to have received the vaccination".

.......So July 1 is out and maybe October, good to know Phipat.....

I believe Phuket has a population of around 70,000. Add possibly another 10,000 unregistered during peak periods and you would have to vaccinate about 1000 a day to get the 70% "magic" figure vaccinated by 1st July. After just having mine and the wife done at a Portsmouth hospital this week with literally 50 plus volunteers and countless hospital staff actually carrying out the vaccinations, on a continuous, extremely well organised, walk though, they were manging 1000 a day so it can be done but with a positive commitment that I feel the Thai government doesn't actually have. Of course, requiring two doses in most cases at a minimum of a month apart, I would guess, the 1st July deadline is looking highly unlikely. Friends in the UK desperate to get back to Thailand without quarantine but liked the idea of a sandbox Phuket have already abandoned those plans of returning in July and doubting anything positive will happen in Thailand now till next year and I would guess many people are doing the same choosing not to believe anything the Thai government are saying.. The 300 baht fee is incidental and almost insignificant on the grand scale of things..

[alien365]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

The idea behind the fee was that any money generated would be used in the management of tourist attractions as well as helping to cover the medical bills of uninsured tourists.

I cant help feel that part of the money made will go towards staffing more tourist attractions to collect more dual pricing entry fees from us. 

[Fex Bluse]

This is their level. It's fun to make fun of them, but the reality is that we should pity them. They can't seem to understand these things. 

[VocalNeal]

17 minutes ago, bluesofa said:

Wouldn't that result in a boom of free STI clinics in Pattaya?

 

Hmm. Is an STD an injury or an illness?

[terryofcrete]

2 hours ago, clivebaxter said:

Well we pay to get out included in the ticket so I guess they think it's only fair we pay to get in as well! How will it be done, lines of people who don't have 300 baht being escorted to ATM's? Highway robbery from people who do not realize the golden goose has flown off.

same as previous charges .. in the price of the flight ... there’s already charges in there ...should be the other way round , we should be subsidised for enduring the filth , lack of hygiene , overpricing, danger of crossing a road , and potential accidents even walking on the third world pavements or even no pavement at all ... and falling down holes ... my personal favourite . 

[hotchilli]

28 minutes ago, Ventenio said:

YES!!!

 

and they will!!!!  Oh they will PAY......pay, pay, pay...

 

Pattaya is like a super black hole........falang must go......must  

I had another vision in my mind.

[crazykopite]

This is how you win tourists back after a pandemic what a bunch of C????????????????????????????????????S

[Chiang Mai Bill]

3 hours ago, EricTh said:

This is ridiculous.

 

Why should all tourists pay for a few scumbags who didn't pay their hospital bills? Those few scumbags should be jailed until they pay their bills.

 

'Management of tourist attractions' is already covered by the double pricing of the tickets for foreigners. Thai also visit these places so the tickets already cover the costs.

 

Why should all tourists pay for some tourist attractions that they don't want to visit or never visited?

 

It is hare-brained idea.

THAT (money to pay for unpaid hospital fees) was the "January" Plan! It is now APRIL!

 

The ''April'' Plan is: "Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said the 300 baht fee will go towards creation of a tourism fund that will help the tourism industry deal with other unforeseen problems or hardships in the future."

 

This money will go to help the unlicensed jet-ski owners, the rip-off bar owners, taxi drivers and tuk-tuk drivers!

[Chiang Mai Bill]

3 hours ago, colinneil said:

So they are going to collect 300 baht per tourist, they aint gonna make much money then, tourists will not be coming.

Who ever dreamed up that, is a complete nutter, Thailand is desperate for tourists, yet the nutters keep putting things in place to deter tourists.

Oh, tourists will still (eventually) come -- they won't know about this "new tax" until they arrive at immigration!