A single visa to visit several SE Asia countries?

[kjun12]

I was not aware that one could obtain a single visa to enter Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. More countries are to be added soon as reported in the article in The Nation. Thailand was in the original mix but backed out for fear of loosing fees to other countries because the scheme required that the fees be paid at the country of entry. Were you aware of this program?

[SoiVC Slut-old]

I am not aware of it. I do not understand , if they are so concerned about losing fees, why people have to do a border run out of the country to renew a visa. Why not just go to the local immigration off in Thailand and renew there. Thailand gets the fee. Am I missing something here ?

тАШYou would just have to apply for one visa and you could then visit all the countries using that visa,тАЩ said Eddy Krisneidi, an ASEAN official. He said that the most popular destination in the region is Malaysia, followed by Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Brunei.

Analysts say visitor numbers could be boosted by slashing the time consuming and confusing visa requirements for each of ASEANтАЩs 10 countries. Currently some allow foreigners to simply purchase visas on arrival, others require wads of paperwork, photos and up to a week to issue the required stamp.

тАШOne of the major concerns of the industry, as well as visitors, is the difficulty of obtaining visas, a series of widely differing regulations and information needs for visas,тАЩ ASEANтАЩs strategic plan states.

тАШIt would definitely benefit all the countries in this region, especially Thailand,тАЩ said Suraphon Svetasreni of the Tourism Authority of Thailand. :party

[ceejay]

At first sight, Thailand's reasoning behind not joining the scheme seems odd. Bangkok is a hub for Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam for visitors from Europe not least because it has been, in my experience, cheaper to fly to Bangkok and then onwards to these countries by a separately booked regional carrier than it is to fly direct. Most of the people travelling onward to these countries will be on Thai visa exemptions anyway. I'd expect, that if people were travelling on from Bangkok they would be more likely to apply for a Thai visa instead of using a visa exemption, simply for the convenience. That would be especially true for Cambodia and Laos which do not have representation in every country (for example, if you want to apply for a Lao visa from the UK you have to send your passport to Paris).

[fedssocr]

I saw that they were thinking about this several months ago at some ASEAN meeting or other. As a USA passport holder most of the ASEAN countries have been fairly simple to get a visa from. But a single visa does make a lot of sense from a tourism standpoint for allowing people to freely move among the countries. The only country that was difficult at all was Myanmar because they seemed to have a big backlog and the form required quite a bit more info. So it took a couple of weeks.

I wonder how much money the Thais really make on visa fees. How many visitors come from visa exempt countries like the USA, other ASEAN countries, most(?) of Europe...?

[lonelywombat]

My impression with Cambodia is that the tourist visa is a big money earner and keeps a large number of people in employment.

Whether that is true or not is open for comment.

I tried to emulate Kevin Quill's success with a business visa many times with out success.

Three times into Cambodia in 3 weeks and $25 a time, is a good government earner.

Dunno why you guys care it is irrelevant for us as we are visa free visitors to Thailand anyway - http://www.ttrweekly.com/site/2012/09/t ... ngle-visa/ (http://www.ttrweekly.com/site/2012/09/thailand-and-cambodia-test-single-visa/)