The Thai Government has been playing around with the idea of implementing a controversial 300 Baht tourism tax for years, and earlier this year (as recent as a few months ago), they were dead set to implement it by the summer.
Nothing happened since and now there are reports in Thai media that the project has once again been postponed, to be handled by the next government, which is to be formed in late August/September.
As so often in Thailand, ideas are born, and then no consensus can be reached on how to implement them in a practical fashion.
The idea of collecting a tourism tax is nothing new and wouldn’t even be such a problem if the government would just stop riling up people by discussing the measure for years without making any progress.
I have been critical of it in the past and still believe that it’s counterproductive to the effort of growing tourism and also makes the arrival process a mess.
The last update came in late April from the Bangkok Post:
The tourism and sports minister has confirmed that collection of the 300-baht tourism fee will not be delayed beyond September, while the ministry plans to ask provincial police to support the tourism police in its operations to clear out “zero-dollar tours” and illegal tours.
Khaosod English went a bit further and elaborated why the fee will be collected later:
Tourism and Sports Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn disclosed that the current government has postponed the tourism tax, which will charge a fee of 300 baht (8-9 U.S. dollars) per foreign tourist, from its original implementation date of June 1, 2023 due to an inability to prepare the system in time.
The new date might be in September of this year, coinciding with the formation of the new government.
According to Nikkei Asia report, this tax will be collected on visitors entering Thailand. This fee is waived for foreign nationals who enter Thailand using a border pass or border crossing letter; local government officials at the border, as well as those who do not have passports but have a letter of permission to work in Thailand, are exempt.
The estimated collection of 3.9 billion baht this year will be used as accident insurance for tourists, who used 300 million to 400 million baht worth of services at government hospitals from 2017 to 2019. The fees will also go toward repatriating the remains of foreign travelers who die while in the country.
The new entry fee is separate from the departure tax that has been included in airfares for decades. The exit fee varies based on the airport, with Bangkok’s main Suvarnabhumi Airport charging the most, at 700 baht.
Since the pandemic, the TAT’s focus has shifted from increasing traveler volume to attracting long-stay and high-spending tourists. …
With all (un)due respect – this doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Typical for the “Ministry of Tourism & Sports” and the Tourism Authority of Thailand, no excuse is embarrassing enough to bring it forward.
This has been discussed for years, and there was ample opportunity to come up with a solution how this would be charged. However, there are really just two ways how to handle this.
- Collect it in cash or by credit card at the airport – this will be total chaos. Can you imagine a payment process in addition to lines such as this one:
- Second option is to bake it into the ticket price just like the airport fee but this would then be charged automatically to ALL passengers, not only foreign tourists. Including Thai citizens and I’m sure that wouldn’t go down well.
Mind you, in February, is was decided that the tax would be collected from June 2023 (we have June 16th today):
The notion that the cash would be used to provide coverage for foreign tourists is a joke. I’m 100% convinced that the hospitals will still try to rip people off and not provide treatment for free. And I can already promise our readers, should this fee be rolled out I’ll go to a designated hospital and test this.
If there are legitimate infrastructure projects and the funds can be properly accounted for fine, but the way this is being designed already sounds like a graft operation.
Simply said, there is no practical way of charging a tourism tax manually. Bangkok Airport is already a mess during peak times, adding a payment process isn’t feasible.
Conclusion
The 300 Baht Tourism tax that was supposed to be charged from June 2023 for all foreign arrivals in Thailand has once again been postponed until a new government is in place. I can’t imagine a new progressive government being onboard with making the airport into a mess by collecting cash or facilitating card payments, adding a minute or more to each persons processing.
The only practical way I could imagine for this is to add the 300 Baht to all tickets that are issued OUTSIDE THAILAND and if a Thai passenger buys the ticket from abroad then so be it, he has to pay.
This way all tickets purchased by Thais going abroad and returning wouldn’t be affected. Likewise however, all foreigners who do the same would also save the fee. That’s the absolute minority though. I bet that 97% of all foreign arrivals purchase their tickets from abroad so the remaining 3% is a negligable margin.
Will these clowns ever get their act together? Probably not. I don’t care about this fee as long as it doesn’t end up disrupting the arrivals process but make an educated, practical decision and finally move on!
