TM30 - Hotel Industry vs Tech Troubles

The controversial TM30 reporting has been an ongoing issue for those who work in hotels and guest houses in Thailand. Since 2019 the rules surrounding the 1979 law on reporting foreigners staying have been enforced more strictly, if not in the same way across the country.

Section 38 of the law states that all foreigners must be reported within 24 hours of checking into a hotel or the private home of a Thai person. This has caused a nightmare for those establishments with many people coming and going everyday, due to the fact that government web site used for this often does not work or uploads documents only after multiple attempts.

Naturally, hotels do not wish to incur any fines for not declaring guests, but equally the tech issues related to TM30 declarations have cost hotels a lot of wasted time and manpower. One manager reported needing a dedicated member of staff to input guest details into the system each morning to be sure they are always up to date.

Fortunately, there are now apps available to make this process faster and easier. The owner or manager must apply for a username and password in order to register guests, then when someone checks in they can simply scan their passport and enter their arrival and leaving dates.

As with all new tech, there have been some teething issues, but these are being ironed out. The fact that the passport only has to be scanned once for the system to then take care of everything is already a massive step in the right direction, saving those in hospitality a lot of wasted man hours, money and stress.

Last update: 2022-01-21 07:24