THE fee for visa on arrival, enjoyed by citizens of 18 countries and Taiwan, will double from Bt1,000 to Bt2,000 with effect from September 27.

Visa on arrival is available at many points of entry and is good for a single use.

The 18 countries are Bulgaria, Bhutan, China, Cyprus, Ethiopia, India, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Romania, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Taiwan.

The Foreign Ministry said in its announcement that the decision to hike the charge for this class of visa was based on what Thai embassies and consulates-general are collecting, to make the fee more comparable.

Comparatively low fees

The fees for all kinds of visas to Thailand have been low compared to what Thais have to pay when they go to a foreign country.

There were attempts by previous governments to increase the fee but they were always dropped after running into opposition from the tourism industry.

The foreign ministry’s announcement comes at an inopportune time following the serial bomb and arson attacks in seven provinces a week ago. The targets included tourism destinations. Four people were killed and many wounded.

Following the violence, many foreign holidaymakers have reportedly cancelled their trips to Thailand out of fear of more attacks. Some foreign countries have issued warnings for their citizens planning to travel to Thailand.

Faye Wilson was forced to turn back at a Thai airport and was escorted all the way back to the United Kingdom by a security guard after they spotted the missing pages.

The ITV report quoted her as telling Thai immigration official that she had been too mortified to reveal the truth and tried to claim she had “lost” them – but the sceptical officers promptly deported her.

According to the online report, she said she and her friends were walking from one bar to the next and we must have been desperate for a wee and obviously didn’t have any toilet roll,” she said.

“We decided it would be a good idea to use my passport, which is obviously really stupid.

“It was maybe two or three pages. I was a bit drunk so didn’t even think about the consequences.”

Thai immigration just opened my passport and started looking through it, and asked ’what’s happened here’?” the 28-year-old hairdresser said.

“I just said that I had lost the pages because I was too embarrassed to explain the real reason. Before I could explain more, they had deported me back to Dubai and then to Glasgow and confiscated my documents.

She had been planning on spending a month in Thailand before moving on to work for a year in Australia.

Read More : ITV Report