The Tourist Authority of Thailand has announced plans to categorize tourists as they arrive in the country and direct them towards destinations appropriate to their perceived ‘quality’.

Minister of Tourist Conformity, Tingtong Bakpakka, told us in an elusive interview “We’re adopting electoral practices from Germany, considering buying trains from Germany, now we’d like to adopt practices from the holiday camps Germany set up in Poland during the war. The aliens can be streamed on arrival into High and Low quality categories using a simple process of means testing.”

Highly qualified immigration officers, most with backgrounds in accounting and fashion, will direct tourists left or right depending on factors such as number of tattoos, shell-suits, sobriety and in-pocket cash.

High-quality tourists, such as those who arrive wearing a tie, will be allowed to roam the country more-or-less freely. Low quality tourists will be bundled onto secure transports and taken to designated ‘ghettos’ such as a specially fenced of stretch of Bangkok’s Sukhumvit Road. Pattaya council have already begun digging a huge moat around the resort to contain tourists deemed ‘especially depraved’, while Koh Tao is to be converted into a maximum-security resort for the three or four Russians expected this year.

Chinese tourists are to be diverted to Chiang Mai where they will be re-educated within specially constructed ramparts dubbed by locals “The Great Wall of Chiang Mai”.

Travel-Blagger Dickie Handcart, speaking as always on behalf of all expats, has welcomed the move. “With tourists corralled into such limited areas, we will literally be able to bombard them into submission with Thainess. They’ll go home more Thai than the Thais.”

A big campaign is under-way to get Thais to ride bicycles, especially in Bangkok. Not only is it hoped the initiative will reduce congestion in the city, but there are major concerns that ASEAN partners such as Vietnam are leaving Thailand behind in cycling technology.

There is however a problem in that many Thais do not see themselves as natural cyclists. Inventerators  from Thailand’s elite engineering colleges are working to overcome this by imbuing bicycles with ‘Thainess’ – Enter the Thaicycle.

The Thaicycle has wheels with three corners which, like the colours of the Thai flag, represent the three pillars of Thai society. The wheels are supported by 12 spokes representing The Dear General’s 12 Commandments.

The Thai Central Command Government has already endorsed the scheme: “Thailand will become a hub for bicycle wheels” enthused Somchai Phigginapowk from the country’s Ministry of Hubs. “Whenever the world sees someone riding one of these, they will say ‘There goes a Thai’.”

Although the design has been criticised by the senior ergonomicist to Phuket’s largest ladyboy bar, government scientists stand behind the Thaicycle. “The strength of three transcends mere physics” explained Junta spokesthing Sergeant-at-Alms Maotpeet “The sheer Thainess of this design means it is vastly superior to anything produced by foreign companies with their so-called engineers slavishly following the Western mantra of the ’round wheel’.”

The government is expected to help boost sales of the Thaicycle by imposing a 300% luxury item tax and a stay in the local army camp for all purchases of round-wheel bicycles.

Tourists who do not meet quality criteria on arrival at any Thai airport will be required to serve at least one week on a Thai fishing boat.

The ‘earn your visa’ scheme is designed to both reduce the dependency of the Thai fishing industry on trafficked slave workers and to bring ‘dodgy’ foreigners into line with a taste of what’s waiting for them if they overstay. Tourists who arrive wearing a suit and tie or in ‘a nice twin-set and pearls’ will be exempted, as will anyone who can pay a modest ‘administrative’ fee – in cash.

Interestingly, but not entirely surprisingly, the proposed regulations do not specify which sex should wear the suits and which the twin-sets.

Admiral Thaithannik of the Thai Navy’s ‘Volunteer’ Fisherman Administration told us, “For whatever reason, Westerners have been taking an unhealthy interest in how we recruit to the fishing boats. We think a little ‘time-served’ will help these ‘low-quality’ tourists appreciate our culture and adjust their attitudes.”

A renowned human right’s activist who works in Thailand on his own special ‘Foreign Criminal Visa’, expressed concerns. ” Exposing fishing crews to foreign tourists, especially Brits and Aussies, will likely scar them for life. I don’t know any Burmese migrant who would want to work on a boat full of drunken Pattaya refugees.”

Nearly-Thai blogger Dicky Handcart thinks tourists will welcome the opportunity for sun, sand and scurvy. “It will certainly help create a class of hard-working, quality tourists, I can’t wait to drone on about it. Another stroke of genius from our dear leaders.”

Dicky wasn’t quite so enthusiastic when we asked him about plans to send ‘digital nomads’ to work in the noodle mines of Korat.