If there has been a decision more off-key than last week's announcement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we missed it. It was during the seventh day of investigations into the murderous and high-profile bombings in the South that the ministry's Department of Consular Affairs posted a notice on its website. Effective from Sept 27, the fee for tourists applying for a visa on arrival will double to 2,000 baht.
The Visa On Arrival (VOA) is a convenience for citizens of 19 countries and territories. They include three which provide the highest number of tourists to Thailand - China, India and Taiwan. These countries are not among the 41 whose nationals need no visa whatsoever to enter the country. Those lucky passport holders pay no fee for stays of up 30 days. The VOA-class citizens receive an express service at a special airport desk, and are required to pay 1,000 baht for a stay of no more than 15 days in Thailand.
That is, the payment is 1,000 baht today -- already no small fee. The cabinet voted in January to approve a fee hike, and plans are to raise it to 2,000 baht unless cooler, saner decision-making prevails. The new price will be the equivalent of US$60 for two weeks' stay.
The new visa fees are an outrageous form of exploitation of foreign tourists, similar to the tactics employed by the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, which charges foreigners 400 baht per visit. The government's move is out of tune and poorly timed given everything else that is going on in Thailand. And arbitrarily setting one of the world's highest prices for a short-term vacation visa on arrival without explanation is the less important of the two major errors.
The VOA charge is out of sync with every other current tourist policy. The price rise goes against numerous campaigns to attract more tourists, which will only be harder in the wake of the Mother's Day bombing of two of the top tourist areas, Hua Hin and Phuket in the South. Any tourist with even a tiny doubt about visiting to Thailand will, after the bombings, think twice about coming, and may not come at all now the VOA cost has doubled.
For citizens of Taiwan, it is a double snub. More than half a million Taiwanese visited Thailand last year, and 600,000-plus were expected in 2016. These well-behaved, often high-spending friends of Thailand just three weeks ago, on Aug 1, opened Taiwan to all Thai tourists, without the need for a visa of any kind. Instead of showing thanks, the consular department replied with a doubling of the fees Taiwanese must pay for a Thai vacation.
This curious and massively mistimed announcement of the price rise was not accompanied with any justification. For example, a note to prospective tourists or the media might have cited a sudden rise in costs in issuing these short-term visas. Left to speculate on what could have spurred such a massive price rise at one time, both the public and prospective visitors seem baffled. Procedures to apply and the staff needed to man the "Visa On Arrival" station at Suvarnabhumi airport and elsewhere seem unchanged.
Like the government's unjustified price doubling at every park entrance, this rise in visa fees for citizens of 19 countries leaves a bad taste. It comes at a time when everyone in the tourist industry is working overtime to overcome the stigma of the southern bombs. The Foreign Ministry should reverse this planned visa price hike, and not bring it back until it can be properly justified.