Some figures re Visa Runs

[Thai Visa Service]

a lot of figures are circulating around. Everyone wondering where are the tourist,etc.

I can see from my business perspective that many people really left Thailand, due to whatever reason.

Just a short summary of a Visa Run Agency, rough figures , but you can see the trend.

Thursday 19th June, two Bangkok based agencies brought appr 500 Filipinos to Vientiane for Visa application.

Filipinos apply for Double Entry Tourist Visa , but do not get the extension from Thai Immigration,means after the two month they do a Visa Run/Exit/U-turn to Cambodia to activate the second entry.

Based on record around 20% of these 500 applicants apply for Non Immigrant Visa, means around 400 people should have turned up at the border around 16th August, but from figures I have only around 150 people used to activate the second entry.

Loss 250 people. Lets assume that from these 250 people may be another 50% have applied Non Immigrant Visa in the meantime. Net loss around 125 people.

Another indication is, before crack down 5 companies had regular trips to border.

Now 2 company stopped, one goes only 2 twice a week, one has reduced to 4 trips a week and only one company goes every day.

[ubonjoe]

A post using Thai in part of it has been removed. Only English is allowed on the forum.

[hathairat2711]

Apologies ubonjoe.....didn't realize

[hathairat2711]

And, as I understand it therefore, you're the only company that operates a visa run on a daily basis.

Where have all the Foreigners gone?

Enjoy

[ubonjoe]

I think the number of border runners are way down because many that were going for visa exempt entries cannot do it any more under the new guidelines. How many were doing them every 15 days?

Getting tourist visas certainly played big part in the reduction.

Perhaps a few that were working illegally got sorted out or left.

[larsjohnsson]

You say only 150 activated the second entry!! But you really don' t know. They could have gone with other companies, to other borders or countries, with airplanes, in private cars or buses, change visas and so on

Edited October 15, 2014 by larsjohnsson

[stevenl]

You say only 150 activated the second entry!! But you really don' t know. They could have gone with other companies, to other borders or countries, with airplanes, in private cars or buses, change visas and so on

Yes, could all be the case.

Does not really matter though, the OP is merely giving an indication of what is happening here, much appreciated.

[phuketrichard]

hmmm

since the new government only wants Quality tourists

how far in the future will it be before the powers that be come up with

Tourist visas will ONLY be issued in the passport holders own country

[paz]

Tourist visas will ONLY be issued in the passport holders own country

Lots of consulates do that already. They must think to be doing good for Thailand, but they are only doing a favor to other consulates and countries, that get the business.

[phuketrichard]

which ones?

I think for about 60 or so nationalities they can get a thai visa just about anywhere in the world

I think now there are very very few countries that will require their nationalities to return to their own country for a thai vsa ( perhaps African/middle eastern ones only)

Can u imagine if EVERYONE one ( US, UK, french , Germans all had to return home to get a thai visa

[ubonjoe]

I think what he meant was that there are many embassies and consulates that will only issue visas to citizens and residents of the country where they are located.

There are citizens of many countries that already have to return home for visas. See this from the Vientiane website, http://vientiane.thaiembassy.org/docs/Restricted%20Countries%202013.pdf

They will not make a rule that everybody has to return home for tourist visas. The would hurt many actual tourists that are traveling to other countries before arriving here.

[Thai Visa Service]

 

You say only 150 activated the second entry!! But you really don' t know. They could have gone with other companies, to other borders or countries, with airplanes, in private cars or buses, change visas and so on

 

The 150 comes from 2 companies going to two different borders, Ban Laem and Ban Pakkard.

For example, Aran/PoiPet not allow Filipinos to do Visa Run, so they can not go somewhere else.

I just wanted to give a indication about the situation and I assume that these people really left.

[khunerik]

 

You say only 150 activated the second entry!! But you really don' t know. They could have gone with other companies, to other borders or countries, with airplanes, in private cars or buses, change visas and so on

 

The 150 comes from 2 companies going to two different borders, Ban Laem and Ban Pakkard.

For example, Aran/PoiPet not allow Filipinos to do Visa Run, so they can not go somewhere else.

I just wanted to give a indication about the situation and I assume that these people really left.

But they can also fly out to activate their second entry of the visa. Today it's very cheap. I don't know how much a border trip cost with your company ? But I have been flying return to 3-4 of the countries around Thailand for 1500-2000 baht with Air Asia and the other cheap airlines

[Thai Visa Service]

 

 

You say only 150 activated the second entry!! But you really don' t know. They could have gone with other companies, to other borders or countries, with airplanes, in private cars or buses, change visas and so on

 

The 150 comes from 2 companies going to two different borders, Ban Laem and Ban Pakkard.

For example, Aran/PoiPet not allow Filipinos to do Visa Run, so they can not go somewhere else.

I just wanted to give a indication about the situation and I assume that these people really left.

But they can also fly out to activate their second entry of the visa. Today it's very cheap. I don't know how much a border trip cost with your company ? But I have been flying return to 3-4 of the countries around Thailand for 1500-2000 baht with Air Asia and the other cheap airlines

 

Citizen of ASEAN,including Filipinos pay THB700.- for a Visa Run.

[wilcopops]

I've been advised to repost this here.

Since the changes in regulations how have visa run companies fared?

Have they all gone out of business?

Have the new regulations changed anything significantly?

I would have thought that the majority of people doing visa runs would have either been on 60 day tourist visas or non immigrant Os, so the basic traffic wouldn't change? Or was it a case of a large proportion being 30 DAY turnarounds and their business has dropped dramatically?

Has the 30 extension for visa-free visitors damaged business?

How much of their business do they think in the end relied on people "living" in Thailand on 30 day visa-less entries?

I'm especially interested in how this affects the main groups of Europeans and US citizens.

Edited October 16, 2014 by wilcopops

[brianp0803]

Probably related to this topic,

assuming many of the people doing visa runs were language school teachers, how are language schools doing?

Maybe no information, but is the drop mostly people from specific countries or uniform?

Day border runs dropping or also Vientiane runs dropping?

[stevenl]

Probably related to this topic,

assuming many of the people doing visa runs were language school teachers, how are language schools doing?

Maybe no information, but is the drop mostly people from specific countries or uniform?

Day border runs dropping or also Vientiane runs dropping?

I would expect especially the Asian countries being hurt by this, Japanese, Chinese, Koreans and Filipinos.

[wilcopops]

Probably related to this topic,

assuming many of the people doing visa runs were language school teachers, how are language schools doing?

Maybe no information, but is the drop mostly people from specific countries or uniform?

Day border runs dropping or also Vientiane runs dropping?

i don't think it would affect teachers as they would usually - if they can't get a work permit, go for a tourist visa - theory last longer and don't interrupt their work so much.

Of course some may even have Non-imm O visas.

many private schools rely on govt school teachers "moonlighting" for the extra cash........ these although technically illegal seem to pass under any radar, whereas employing someone with the WRONG visa is worse than with the wrong permit.

[gk10002000]

the OP made an interesting post. I am not surprised and I am presuming that a large number of them were workers and not true tourists. The change last year from 15 to 30 days for Land border crossings for the G-7 country citizens no doubt cuts down on routine tourists that just use the exempt visa method, and probably some not so routine people that were using the Visa Exempt method to continually stay in the country.

[brianp0803]

Maybe instead of doing the 30 day visa runs people are changing and paying for educational visa instead.

Most visa runners are probably staying more than a year and it is now more convenient to pay for for an educational visa.

Before people thought cheaper to do quick day runs.

If that option is removed the next cheapest method to stay in Thailand long term is buying an Edmonton visa.

Is there an increase of people on visa run to Vientiane that paid for paperwork for Ed. Visa?

[wilcopops]

Probably related to this topic,

assuming many of the people doing visa runs were language school teachers, how are language schools doing?

Maybe no information, but is the drop mostly people from specific countries or uniform?

Day border runs dropping or also Vientiane runs dropping?

"assuming many of the people doing visa runs were language school teachers, how are language schools doing" - I think this is way too nebulous.....firstly there is the assumption that many of them were "teachers"....second to get an idea of how "language schools" are doing would be very difficult as there are so many actors affecting EL education especially since the coup and the changing of the Uni yearly semesters.

​It seems to me the most representative way would be to get some accurate idea of how many people were and are doing visa runs. my personal opinion is that the measures ae in effective because anyone doing turnarounds per a long period is more likely to have a "O" or tourist visa or even an "Ed" visa.

​there may have be wen an "underclass" of casual runners who either stayed here o0n a pension (without the 800k baht) or alter ate between earning at home at them speeding several months over here, sitting outside a 7/11 nursing a Chang?

[Thai Visa Service]

At the moment I can only compare our figures for the daily run from Bangkok to Cambodia year on year.

In the past each company had its strength in certain area and some catered for specific nationalities only.

I can not speak for companies based in Chiang Mai, Phuket, Samui or Pattaya, but figures from Bangkok I think I can fairly judge and summarize as we know the figures from 4 border post, Kanchanaburi, Aran, Ban Laem and Ban Pakkard, there are also specific groups like Laotian and Vietnamese who organized themselves, which are down by at least 50% too, but not included in below summary.

In our case : For the Daily Runs the total on customer using the our service during Monday to Friday is down 50-70%, the weekend trips ,Saturday n Sunday is down 80-90%.

Obvious the number of people to Laos for Visa application went up, but only about 30%. People applied Tourist Visa, ED-Visa and Non B-Visa, but it did not cover for the loss of people.

The 30day extension on visa exempt stamp did not effect our business as our business in the past were 70-80% repeat customer, may be the Tourist Centres in Pattaya, Samui or Phuket are affected, BTW Russian n Vietnamese get only 7days, even when present a Ticket.

Here some rough figures, you will be surprised how "few people" did Visa Runs, compared with the millions real Tourist Arrival. Back in May when crack down was started and press has released many wrong statements is was portrayed as booming business, funny enough, none of the reporters ever called us or referred to us,so I wondered from who they got the info from.

Before Crack Down all 4 borders reachable from Bangkok, weekday 100-120people/daily, weekends 300people/daily = roughly 4600people per month, roughly 55000people per year, operators from Bangkok are not affected by Tourist Peak or Low Season, the figures are pretty stable throughout the year.

Compare this to the actual "claimed" tourist arrival and you see that these numbers are peanuts, yet Immigration seams to be obsessed with Visa Runners.

[wilcopops]

At the moment I can only compare our figures for the daily run from Bangkok to Cambodia year on year.

In the past each company had its strength in certain area and some catered for specific nationalities only.

I can not speak for companies based in Chiang Mai, Phuket, Samui or Pattaya, but figures from Bangkok I think I can fairly judge and summarize as we know the figures from 4 border post, Kanchanaburi, Aran, Ban Laem and Ban Pakkard, there are also specific groups like Laotian and Vietnamese who organized themselves, which are down by at least 50% too, but not included in below summary.

In our case : For the Daily Runs the total on customer using the our service during Monday to Friday is down 50-70%, the weekend trips ,Saturday n Sunday is down 80-90%.

Obvious the number of people to Laos for Visa application went up, but only about 30%. People applied Tourist Visa, ED-Visa and Non B-Visa, but it did not cover for the loss of people.

The 30day extension on visa exempt stamp did not effect our business as our business in the past were 70-80% repeat customer, may be the Tourist Centres in Pattaya, Samui or Phuket are affected, BTW Russian n Vietnamese get only 7days, even when present a Ticket.

Here some rough figures, you will be surprised how "few people" did Visa Runs, compared with the millions real Tourist Arrival. Back in May when crack down was started and press has released many wrong statements is was portrayed as booming business, funny enough, none of the reporters ever called us or referred to us,so I wondered from who they got the info from.

Before Crack Down all 4 borders reachable from Bangkok, weekday 100-120people/daily, weekends 300people/daily = roughly 4600people per month, roughly 55000people per year, operators from Bangkok are not affected by Tourist Peak or Low Season, the figures are pretty stable throughout the year.

Compare this to the actual "claimed" tourist arrival and you see that these numbers are peanuts, yet Immigration seams to be obsessed with Visa Runners.

Yes - it seems time and again the Thai authorities both under this regime and previous governments have made decisions on matters such as immigration without any real in-depth research into what the problem actually was - if there was in fact a significant problem at all.

[hullupullo]

Obvious the number of people to Laos for Visa application went up, but only about 30%. People applied Tourist Visa, ED-Visa and Non B-Visa, but it did not cover for the loss of people.

Maybe they went by themselves? I can think using your service for borderrun but for new visa I will go alone. Flexible dates, transport, hotel etc And consulate/embassy I can choose myself. Vientiane is not "very traveler friendly" if you have multiple visas on passport. So freedom to do this and even less money, yes maybe some do this themselves?

[wilcopops]

the question is who are they? ..and did they actually exist in the way the government thought?