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Thailand is pushing for a Schengen-style EU visa for mainland Southeast Asia

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adminApril 7, 2024No comment
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Thailand is leading the initiative for a joint visa program with countries that welcomed a combined total of around 70 million tourists last 12 months, while Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin is stepping up initiatives to draw more long-haul, big-spending travelers.
Srettha, who has pledged to raise Thailand’s status as a tourist hotspot to an aviation and logistics hub, discussed the Schengen visa idea along with his counterparts in Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar AND Vietnam in recent months. The facility is meant to make sure seamless mobility of travelers between six neighboring countries.
As most leaders responded positively to the only visa concept, tourismDependent Thailand goals to generate more revenue per traveler and protect its economy from unfavorable aspects reminiscent of sluggish exports and weak global demand which might be hurting its manufacturing industry.

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According to official data, six Southeast Asian countries reported a complete of 70 million foreign tourist arrivals in 2023. More than half of the overall went to Thailand and Malaysia, which generated about $48 billion in tourism revenue.

The single visa is probably the most ambitious of Srettha’s tourism initiatives, but is long-term in nature. The industry has served the country well, providing about 20 percent of all jobs and about 12 percent of the nation’s $500 billion economy. Except pandemic years, tourism has flourished, providing protection against the collapse of production and exports, the standard strongholds of the economy.

The tourism industry is optimistic, with Marisa Sukosol Nunbhakdi, former president of the Thai Hotel Association, saying that “a typical visa may lead long-haul travelers to make a better decision.” To make the visa attractive, it ought to be prolonged to 90 days from the standard 30 days, she added.

Last month, tourists took photos at a mosque in Kuala Lumpur throughout the International Day Against Islamophobia. Malaysia and Thailand together generated about $48 billion in tourism revenue last 12 months. Photo: EPA-EFE
The Sretha administration has set a goal of attracting 80 million tourists by 2027. Since taking power about seven months ago, his government has signed a mutual agreement visa waiver agreement with China – Thailand’s largest tourist market – and offered a brief visa waiver for travelers from Thailand India, Taiwan AND Kazakhstan. It can be considering a plan to open casinos in large entertainment complexes, and event-based tourism will help the country generate more revenue.

If done properly, the advantages of visa-free travel is not going to be limited to tourism alone, as the benefit of travel can be a boon for business travelers and trade, in accordance with Bill Barnett, managing director of hospitality and property consultancy C9 Hotelworks.

However, a Schengen visa, which means that you can move freely inside Europe’s borderless zone, is usually a difficult task given Southeast Asian Nation Associationthe group’s poor track record in accelerating multilateral policy frameworks and the group’s standing as a venue for talks.

“It seems like the best way to do this is to take a country-by-country approach,” Barnett said. “Bilateral agreements where governments lead the way on these types of issues make a lot of sense because they look outward rather than inward.”

Prime Minister of Thailand Srettha Thavisin. Observers say that as a neophyte in politics, he may lack the strength to push through the visa proposal. Photo: EPA-EFE
In the case of a typical visa program, there’s a have to coordinate permits and there aren’t any standard immigration criteria amongst participating countries, unlike European Union This could pose a challenge, in accordance with Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor at Chulalongkorn University’s political science department. He said that ASEAN as a bunch is a divided entity and has a poor record on immigration.

Thitinan said Srettha is a neophyte in politics and should lack the strength to push through the visa proposal.

“I see all the different things he was trying to do as picking low-hanging fruit and picking the fruit off the ground,” Thitinan said. “Sometimes the fruit on the ground is rotten.”

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