News Forum - Thailand to charge foreign arrivals 500 baht “tourism fee” from next year

[gummy]

Just now, Bluesofa said:

They have been doing that for years here already.

Originally we had to pay 500 Baht 'departure tax'. Then it was added to to price of the ticket, so no one could see it. Since then it's been increased to 1,000 Baht IIRC.

Just keep adding it on to the ticket, we wouldn't want any transparency now would we?

I think it is the principle of increasing costs to come to Thailand and the ridiculous reasons for it that infuriates people, rather than the actual costs. Imagine the uproar if Thailand imposed the same level of departure costs that are levied in the UK 

[Fluke]

27 minutes ago, NCC1701A said:

what do astronauts and tourist to Thailand have in common?

Its a long difficult journey for them both ?

And once they get to their destination, they cannot go outside

[farang]

will this 500 baht charge get the 100,000 usd insurance dropped?i hope so.if it does this would be great.as it stands now on an o/a visa and most others you are required to buy a 100,000 usd covid insurance.but the rub is ,you cant buy it if you are 74 or 75 years or older.so how can you get the visa if you fall in to this or older age? maybe they will drop it by nov 2021 i hope.

[Bob20]

18 minutes ago, Bluesofa said:

They have been doing that for years here already.

Originally we had to pay 500 Baht 'departure tax'. Then it was added to to price of the ticket, so no one could see it. Since then it's been increased to 1,000 Baht IIRC.

Just keep adding it on to the ticket, we wouldn't want any transparency now would we?

 

20 minutes ago, gummy said:

Yes that is common Thai logic which prevails still

In the airline industry it's much more relaxed. They only charge 50%.

The carrier only pays the landing fee. But you can take off as many times as you like

[thai3]

I thought the original 500 baht departure tax had been increased to 800? Now they are adding 500 for an arrival tax on the unlikely promise it will be spent on tourism. Why should visitors have to subsidise their tourism projects directly?. 

[TheDirtyDurian]

45 minutes ago, Fluke said:

They still do collect that money 

But it's indirectly in the ticket price

[Fluke]

Just now, TheDirtyDurian said:

But it's indirectly in the ticket price

That just means that you pay 500 Baht when buying your ticket, rather than paying at the departure point  

[richard]

I don't have a problem paying 500 baht if it goes to aid whatever it's supposed to. I do have a problem with the phrase, "the additional cost won't have an impact on tourists as we want to focus on the QUALITY market. Does that mean the "ordinary" mum and dad tourists and other who just want a good time are not worthy of visiting this beautiful country. If the Thai government wants to assume those ordinary folk are not worthy due to their financial status then I am sure they will find Vietnam, Bali, etc more accommodating. The ordiary tourist will have a certain budget and they will spend that budget big or small. The wealthy also have a budget but they do not like spending it, they like to accumulate. They will have their expense accounts set up so that most money spent will go back out of Thailand. Thailand needs the 10 day tourists who spend money where it's needed not those that spend it in high end hotels.

[gummy]

1 minute ago, richard said:

I don't have a problem paying 500 baht if it goes to aid whatever it's supposed to. I do have a problem with the phrase, "the additional cost won't have an impact on tourists as we want to focus on the QUALITY market. Does that mean the "ordinary" mum and dad tourists and other who just want a good time are not worthy of visiting this beautiful country. If the Thai government wants to assume those ordinary folk are not worthy due to their financial status then I am sure they will find Vietnam, Bali, etc more accommodating. The ordiary tourist will have a certain budget and they will spend that budget big or small. The wealthy also have a budget but they do not like spending it, they like to accumulate. They will have their expense accounts set up so that most money spent will go back out of Thailand. Thailand needs the 10 day tourists who spend money where it's needed not those that spend it in high end hotels.

You are quite correct of course but you overlook that high end hotels are owned by families who support this government and "others" that wish that it remains in power. Thus the millions of normal Thais,  and the middle classes with perhaps a small hotel are of no consequence to this government as they are not the ones who provide massive kick backs or "birthday" presents to certain people.

[Bob20]

1 minute ago, richard said:

I don't have a problem paying 500 baht if it goes to aid whatever it's supposed to. I do have a problem with the phrase, "the additional cost won't have an impact on tourists as we want to focus on the QUALITY market. Does that mean the "ordinary" mum and dad tourists and other who just want a good time are not worthy of visiting this beautiful country. If the Thai government wants to assume those ordinary folk are not worthy due to their financial status then I am sure they will find Vietnam, Bali, etc more accommodating. The ordiary tourist will have a certain budget and they will spend that budget big or small. The wealthy also have a budget but they do not like spending it, they like to accumulate. They will have their expense accounts set up so that most money spent will go back out of Thailand. Thailand needs the 10 day tourists who spend money where it's needed not those that spend it in high end hotels.

Any country can decide to set it's "target market".

Problem is that the high quality "rich" target market expects to be provided with quality.

There are one or two things (maybe even three ) that Thailand needs to get right before it can attract this demographic

[Sawarot]

Just playing with numbers here, but let's assume that out of the 40 million visitors per year they had before, a quarter were less than affluent. It makes for easy math. The wealthy may allocate a budget for their trip and this new fee/point tax will just be added on top. For those other 10 million people the 500 baht will be taken from the budget. Maybe they were looking to spend 50,000 baht, now they have only 49,500 baht to spend on jungle treks, guest houses, buses and street food. The SMEs of Thailand, the irregular businesses, the mom and pop operations will now be deprived of 5 billion baht collectively. If my "numbers-picked-out-of-the-air" hold up. 

If this tax is somehow distributed among these small businesses, or used to make their offerings more sustainable or more attractive, then I'm all for it. But experience tells me this is just a way of setting up a money trough and making sure more wealth goes where it is needed the least: to the already wealthy. 

[AlexPTY]

Tourists will support tourism in Thailand. How come nobody thought about this before? Nobel prize goes to... 

[longwood50]

3 hours ago, gummy said:

So they have come up with another piece of Thai logic. How do you encourage more tourists to Thailand ? 

Answer - Charge them more.

You are correct although you do have to keep in mind that what a politician says is only to disguise their real motivation.  They strictly want more revenue to potentially skim.  

Simple basic economics.  Things you subsidize you get more of.  Things you tax you get less of.  That is why they tax gas guzzling cars, and cigarettes to discourage people from purchasing them.  

While it is only 500 baht it flies in the face of putting out a welcome to encourage much needed tourists to come back to Thailand.   It seems as though they are like the Queen in the tale of Snow White thinking that Thailand "is the fairest of them all"   The reality is that Thailand is a nice country but there are many other alternatives particularly for those who are wealthy.  If anyone has been to Hawaii I can assure you it is much more of a tropical paradise than Thailand. 

[gummy]

5 minutes ago, longwood50 said:

You are correct although you do have to keep in mind that what a politician says is only to disguise their real motivation.  They strictly want more revenue to potentially skim.  

Simple basic economics.  Things you subsidize you get more of.  Things you tax you get less of.  That is why they tax gas guzzling cars, and cigarettes to discourage people from purchasing them.  

While it is only 500 baht it flies in the face of putting out a welcome to encourage much needed tourists to come back to Thailand.   It seems as though they are like the Queen in the tale of Snow White thinking that Thailand "is the fairest of them all"   The reality is that Thailand is a nice country but there are many other alternatives particularly for those who are wealthy.  If anyone has been to Hawaii I can assure you it is much more of a tropical paradise than Thailand. 

Sorry, been to Hawaii twice and my vote goes to Thailand every day. Now if you are talking of the Cook Islands or even Fiji perhaps then that is a different story. The ultra wealthy have no need to come here when there are places such as Nevis that will afford them almost 100% exclusivity if tropical islands is what they are looking for.

[HolyCowCm]

And they now daily are finding ways to rehydrate the money well that was siphoned to a few drops. Maybe the submarines will not be postponed after all.

If they discontinue Covid 19 and health insurance requirements as adding this 500 fee or even extra for the tourists and Expats every year, then why not. But somehow I don't think it is going to work that way.

[BIGGLES]

The new arrival tax is further proof, if more proof were needed, that the lunatics are most definitely running the asylum !

It's gone from 300 baht ( to provide insurance for tourists), to 500 baht for low class tourists paying for high class tourism,  but these tourists will not mind paying this, as we are all going to be green tourists. 

Well, they want to f..k people in the a..e and shoot themselves in the foot at the same time.

DELUSIONAL!

[Jason]

Taking a step back from this....a long step back....there's nothing like introducing a fee...see what the response will be....and then drop it, or reduce it under certain conditions. It's an old game. I wonder why it's necessary seeing the PM is about to spend a motza (a lot of money) on improvements to Phuket (it's about time...if it happens).

[LoongFred]

I think it's sort of brilliant.  The low budget folks who did boarder bounces every 30 or 90 days will have to pay up. Four boarder bounces/year would be 2000 baht. Someone on MTV would pay 500 baht each time. Only those with very limited funds would object, but those are the same ones TAT isn't interested in. 

Getting a Non o in Laos without needs to show money in the bank would be 1900 B, 3800b for multiple entry, plus a new 2000 b (4 in and outs) entry fee or a total of 7700 B . Then add cost to visa run companies and maybe an overnight. It becomes unworkable. 

Those who can't afford it might complain, but it will not be a problem for the rest of us.

 

 

[MikeW]

3 hours ago, Bob20 said:

This totally depends on how the plan is executed.

If they add 500 baht tax to every plane ticket, nobody is going to kick up a fuss.

If they're going to expect 500 baht in cash on arrival, it will get people's neckhairs on edge.

It's been the same in every other country that did it. 

Especially if people don't know in advance. A family of 4 walk up to the immigration counter and are told that will be 2000 bhat 

[Bob20]

2 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Especially if people don't know in advance. A family of 4 walk up to the immigration counter and are told that will be 2000 bhat 

You'll be able to pay in any currency They're nice like that, or maybe just because many haven't changed their currency into baht at that stage yet

It would of course be better to let the locals benefit from tourist spending, but even I understand by now that that's not really what it's about...

[cmsally]

This type of issue follows a common theme, which is take the money from somewhere, (in this case the foreign tourists) filter it through the government and then be seen giving it out. The theme here being that the government is good at handing out other people's money. Heaven forbid that the average Joe Public should be grateful to the tourists. Gratitude has to be carefully funnelled to the "correct" channels.

[Soidog]

5 hours ago, TheDirtyDurian said:

No different to the 500 baht departure tax they used to collect at the airport before. 

Yes that’s exactly right and something I posted about a couple of months ago. However, my understanding (correct me if I’m wrong) is that this is one and the same departure tax collected from foreigners prior to 2007. It was then decided to place it in the price of the air fare as an additional tax and hence easier to collect. So foreigners are already paying this 500 baht and this is a further 500 baht? Maybe something changed and I missed something, but this feels like a further charge ?

[Soidog]

I could apply this post to almost all of the topics being discussed….

Can you imagine what it would be like if Thailand had a high quality Investigative journalism tv programme such as Four Corners in Australia, Panorama in the U.K. or Frontline in the U.S.  As a journalist, you just wouldn’t know where to start would you?  Almost every story and comment coming out of central government is worthy of further investigation. Just about every public office is worthy of an investigation.   It would take you years and years and still only scratch the surface. Simply incredible when you stop and think about it. And Thailand is a middle income country. Can you imagine what some other places are like. What a mess the world is in

[Bob20]

6 minutes ago, Soidog said:

I could apply this post to almost all of the topics being discussed….

Can you imagine what it would be like if Thailand had a high quality Investigative journalism tv programme such as Four Corners in Australia, Panorama in the U.K. or Frontline in the U.S.  As a journalist, you just wouldn’t know where to start would you?  Almost every story and comment coming out of central government is worthy of further investigation. Just about every public office is worthy of an investigation.   It would take you years and years and still only scratch the surface. Simply incredible when you stop and think about it. And Thailand is a middle income country. Can you imagine what some other places are like. What a mess the world is in

It would take years and years...

So who will do the work if you're not seen again after your first day of investigating?

I doubt there's nobody who wants to find out, so I guess there are other reasons not to delve too deep

[Soidog]

1 hour ago, LoongFred said:

I think it's sort of brilliant.  The low budget folks who did boarder bounces every 30 or 90 days will have to pay up. Four boarder bounces/year would be 2000 baht. Someone on MTV would pay 500 baht each time. Only those with very limited funds would object, but those are the same ones TAT isn't interested in. 

Getting a Non o in Laos without needs to show money in the bank would be 1900 B, 3800b for multiple entry, plus a new 2000 b (4 in and outs) entry fee or a total of 7700 B . Then add cost to visa run companies and maybe an overnight. It becomes unworkable. 

Those who can't afford it might complain, but it will not be a problem for the rest of us.

It must be great being rich like you @LoongFred How I envy people like you with so much money. I hope you don’t go around rubbing the noses of the poor local people in it?  Mind you, living in your 100m Baht condo in Thong Lor or holidaying in you beachside villa in  Phuket, means you won’t need to mix too much with the scut. You lucky lucky guy.