News Forum - Thailand Tourism needs longer visas and more flights

[Thaiger]

In order to facilitate increased tourism, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has set a few goals. They aim to help add flights into Thailand during the high season as well as petition to continue longer visa-on-arrival time periods to enable tourists to stay in the kingdom longer. As international tourism to Thailand increases steadily, …

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[Ramanathan.P]

No point in extending the visa or arrival from 30 days to 45 days where the vehicles that these people drive in is not given 45 days. When they initially introduced it, I ride my bike to Thailand hoping to get 45 days. But they gave me 45 days but my bike only 30 days. In the end I just went back after 15 days. 

[Guest1]

28 minutes ago, Ramanathan.P said:

No point in extending the visa or arrival from 30 days to 45 days where the vehicles that these people drive in is not given 45 days. When they initially introduced it, I ride my bike to Thailand hoping to get 45 days. But they gave me 45 days but my bike only 30 days. In the end I just went back after 15 days. 

I am pretty certain, with the 45 days they aren't targeting neighbouring country tourists, arriving with the own bike or car. 

But you are right: assumingly no one ever thought about, that land border crossers with own vehicle would like to stay longer,.45 days in once, too.

[Vigo]

On line approved 60 day or 90 day visas without need to report to immigration would take care of a lot of extended stay visitors. And allow visitors to do do this 2X with perhaps an interval of 30-60 days out of country.

[HolyCowCm]

Article quote: As international tourism to Thailand increases steadily, faster growth has been stymied by semantics. In China, for example, tour operators and travel companies haven’t been able to work out the logistics of bringing big groups after the sudden reopening of borders for outbound Chinese tourists. But even more difficult is adding flights to routes and schedules to facilitate the desire of people to fly into Thailand. Take-off and landing time slots must be requested with and approved by aviation authorities. Chinese airlines have reached out to the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand in an effort to boost the number of flights to pre-pandemic tourism levels.

The extension is nothing more than facilitate large groups of Chinese to come here and spend which facilitates their Masters the CCP. If no then one would have thought these morons would have learned already by now that Thailand was ruined by too many of them overunning the country continually non stop. They should actually governor limit the Chinese, not the opposite.

[Highlandman]

1 hour ago, Ramanathan.P said:

No point in extending the visa or arrival from 30 days to 45 days where the vehicles that these people drive in is not given 45 days. When they initially introduced it, I ride my bike to Thailand hoping to get 45 days. But they gave me 45 days but my bike only 30 days. In the end I just went back after 15 days. 

This isn't targeting tourists from neighboring countries who under an Asean agreement, get just 30 days (14 days for Cambodians). 

It's easy enough to extend a 30 day temporary vehicle import permit by another 30 days once inside Thailand anyway.

In general, citizens of neighboring countries tend to come and go but rarely spend anywhere near 30 days at a time in the country with their cars, let alone 45, unless they're coming for work, study or other purposes in which case they won't be eligible to bring their vehicles along. 

Citizens of many neighboring countries are likely to travel in and out of Thailand multiple times per month especially residents of border provinces/states (such as Vientiane, Savannakhet, Koh Kong, Perlis etc.) such trips generally tend to be for anywhere from 1 to 7 days. 

[M.O.]

"semantics has stymied faster growth"

Does the author know the meaning of the word semantics?

[Ithurtswhenip]

Thailand has turned visa extensions into a revenue stream,  which is fine with me. My request is to simply allow people to buy their 90 day upon arrival by plane for what the cost would be to buy at immigration. This would lower the strain on local immigration offices, avoid punishing long term visitors for supporting the economy, and modernize the visa experience.

[Ramanathan.P]

4 hours ago, Guest1 said:

I am pretty certain, with the 45 days they aren't targeting neighbouring country tourists, arriving with the own bike or car. 

But you are right: assumingly no one ever thought about, that land border crossers with own vehicle would like to stay longer,.45 days in once, too.

Well my plan is 30 days ride in Thailand with a buffer of 15 days just in case any shortfalls along the way. But since only 30 days, I went back after 15 days ride. 

[Skip]

Look at all the lost revenue if Thailand changes their visa time frames... the new 300thb entry fee will drop... the overall total of the hidden exit fee will be reduced... keep tourists being tourists with limited visas 

[tbrown]

Thailand plays around with all sorts of schemes, but ignores the biggedt tourist market - North America.  Only recently has a single non-stop flight appeared, that being Air Canada’s flight AC65 and AC66 from Vancouver to Bangkok on only four days per week, and only during high season.  There remains ZERO non-stop flight from USA to Bangkok.  Why is that?…. Thailand wants tourists?  Really?

[Ivo_Shandor]

53 minutes ago, tbrown said:

Thailand plays around with all sorts of schemes, but ignores the biggedt tourist market - North America.  Only recently has a single non-stop flight appeared, that being Air Canada’s flight AC65 and AC66 from Vancouver to Bangkok on only four days per week, and only during high season.  There remains ZERO non-stop flight from USA to Bangkok.  Why is that?…. Thailand wants tourists?  Really?

Thailand is still a FAA category 2 country, hence its airlines are banned flying into the US (see: https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/iasa/iasa-program-results). Codesharing can work, but most probably US airlines do not find profitable to fly directly into BKK at the moment.

Edited January 15 by Ivo_Shandor

[Naanlaew]

Thai Airways had an 18 hour flight from JFK-BKK  & LAX-BKK but they discontinued it due to lack of profitability.  It cost an awful lot to fly all the the fuel for such a journey. 

Edited January 15 by Naanlaew

[Marc26]

3 hours ago, Naanlaew said:

Thai Airways had an 18 hour flight from JFK-BKK  & LAX-BKK but they discontinued it due to lack of profitability.  It cost an awful lot to fly all the the fuel for such a journey. 

Yup and why Air Canada is now direct from Vancouver because they say the economics on the new planes make it profitable 

[Naanlaew]

The old Airbus A340 were real fuel hogs.

Thai was always challenged when it came to profits though.

Edited January 16 by Naanlaew

[Ivo_Shandor]

8 hours ago, Marc26 said:

Yup and why Air Canada is now direct from Vancouver because they say the economics on the new planes make it profitable 

I would not be so sure. It's a seasonal route 4 times/week running for 4 months, and considering fuel cost, jet lease, landing rights etc... they are running at a loss (or in par) even with full occupancy, most probably they are just checking if it is worth or not in the long run.

Edited January 16 by Ivo_Shandor

[Faz]

On 1/14/2023 at 12:44 PM, Ramanathan.P said:

No point in extending the visa or arrival from 30 days to 45 days where the vehicles that these people drive in is not given 45 days. When they initially introduced it, I ride my bike to Thailand hoping to get 45 days. But they gave me 45 days but my bike only 30 days. In the end I just went back after 15 days. 

On 1/14/2023 at 1:17 PM, Guest1 said:

I am pretty certain, with the 45 days they aren't targeting neighbouring country tourists, arriving with the own bike or car. 

But you are right: assumingly no one ever thought about, that land border crossers with own vehicle would like to stay longer,.45 days in once, too.

Misleading and incorrect!

You're confusing Visa exempt and bilateral agreement entries, when TAT specifically stated VOA entries.

Quote

as well as petition to continue longer visa-on-arrival time periods to enable tourists to stay in the kingdom longer.

Those eligible for a Visa on arrival are only granted a stay of 15 days, which cannot be extended.

Nationals of those 18 Countries, eligible for Visa on arrival, also have the option to apply for a Visa from a Thai Embassy/Consulate before travelling to Thailand.

TAT are petitioning to increase the permitted stay from a VOA entry, from 15 to 30 days, the same as nationals from other Countries entering Visa exempt are granted.

[Dancbmac]

On 1/15/2023 at 10:10 AM, tbrown said:

Thailand plays around with all sorts of schemes, but ignores the biggedt tourist market - North America.  

I keep reading that China is the largest tourist nationality visiting Thailand and then Malaysians, Russians, South Korea, UK, Australia, and others. Possibly because many of these countries are closer to Thailand and doesn’t take a day to fly here??  I have met some American & Canadians expats, but way more Brits & Aussies traveling around Thailand.  I recently met a Russian in his 30s living at my condo in Bangkok and usually I only see Russians in Pattaya and Phuket, but myself and my wife Thai usually visit these location once a year during low season.  

Maybe your comment meant Thai people visiting North America for tourism?  It is really difficult for Thais to get visas to visit the USA.  Not sure about Canada.  My Thai wife worked for a Canadian company in Bangkok and the company has an annual convention in Las Vegas and her company sponsored all employees eligible for awards to go to the convention, but about half were denied with no reason given.  At the Embassy interviews they had to show a strong connection to return to Thailand.  My wife owns property in Bangkok and up in her northern province where her family lives, but were all paid for in cash so no loans for any of them.  She paid off her college loan and she also bought her car with cash and never had a loan on it. Being the only successful kid of 4 in her family, she became her parents retirement account and she takes care of all their financials and also bought her dad a new pickup truck in cash a few years ago before I met her.  Brand new employees recently hired at her company  for a couple of months and who were 18-22 just out of school with car loans, some had college loans, and either a condo lease or still lived with their parents had their visa to the USA convention approved.  So hard to know what immigration bases approval of tourist visas.  We now have had a marriage visa request for her going on 13 months now and logging into immigration website says still have two months until we find out if she gets another Embassy interview. However, that said when a Thai does get approval, many do go to the US several times on tourist or business visas, but even they do not know why their initial visas were approved and the other half denied.  Only speculation amongst them.

[yselmike]

15 minutes ago, Dancbmac said:

I keep reading that China is the largest tourist nationality visiting Thailand and then Malaysians, Russians, South Korea, UK, Australia, and others. Possibly because many of these countries are closer to Thailand and doesn’t take a day to fly here??  I have met some American & Canadians expats, but way more Brits & Aussies traveling around Thailand.  I recently met a Russian in his 30s living at my condo in Bangkok and usually I only see Russians in Pattaya and Phuket, but myself and my wife Thai usually visit these location once a year during low season.  

Maybe your comment meant Thai people visiting North America for tourism?  It is really difficult for Thais to get visas to visit the USA.  Not sure about Canada.  My Thai wife worked for a Canadian company in Bangkok and the company has an annual convention in Las Vegas and her company sponsored all employees eligible for awards to go to the convention, but about half were denied with no reason given.  At the Embassy interviews they had to show a strong connection to return to Thailand.  My wife owns property in Bangkok and up in her northern province where her family lives, but were all paid for in cash so no loans for any of them.  She paid off her college loan and she also bought her car with cash and never had a loan on it. Being the only successful kid of 4 in her family, she became her parents retirement account and she takes care of all their financials and also bought her dad a new pickup truck in cash a few years ago before I met her.  Brand new employees recently hired at her company  for a couple of months and who were 18-22 just out of school with car loans, some had college loans, and either a condo lease or still lived with their parents had their visa to the USA convention approved.  So hard to know what immigration bases approval of tourist visas.  We now have had a marriage visa request for her going on 13 months now and logging into immigration website says still have two months until we find out if she gets another Embassy interview. However, that said when a Thai does get approval, many do go to the US several times on tourist or business visas, but even they do not know why their initial visas were approved and the other half denied.  Only speculation amongst them.

The downside of Paying cash means you haven't got a credit rating,you sort of become invisible to the authorities.That becomes a problem when you have dealings with them.

[Dancbmac]

3 minutes ago, yselmike said:

The downside of Paying cash means you haven't got a credit rating,you sort of become invisible to the authorities.That becomes a problem when you have dealings with them.

That seems to be the case.  We started working on that a little over two years ago with a loan using one of her properties as collateral and also having her brother co-sign when she was still single and we were just dating.  I explained how it works in the US if you pay cash for everything then you have a poor credit rating and insurance and other things cost more including if you try to get credit.  Will see in a couple of months.  Hurry up and wait for the government

[Faz]

Some interesting replies, but off-topic.
This topic is about Visas to Thailand, specifically the Visa on Arrival.

Please open a new thread on subjects related to Visas to other Countries, and I'll chip in with replies.

Moderator

[Faz]

Off topic replies have been removed.

I repeat, this topic is about the Visa on Arrival - not Visa exempt entries, entries via bilateral agreements, Visas to Canada or 30 day extensions. Further, off-topic replies will be removed and holidays may be forthcoming.

Moderator.

[Marc26]

12 hours ago, Ivo_Shandor said:

I would not be so sure. It's a seasonal route 4 times/week running for 4 months, and considering fuel cost, jet lease, landing rights etc... they are running at a loss (or in par) even with full occupancy, most probably they are just checking if it is worth or not in the long run.

Yes, of course

But their premise is that it is more cost effective with this plane

 

I am on it for the 1st time Feb 15th

Going there only saves about 2 hours(which is still good)

 

But coming back will be awesome with only 13 hours