Pattaya is way too attractive for the newborn and ever increasing Thai middle class from Bangkok, a huge megapolis. Before Covid, the weekend and holiday influx of Bangkokers, together with the Chinese tour buses, made Pattaya traffic system seriously overloaded. And this tendency was on the rise from year to year. Bangkokers got more and more interest in Pattaya.
Looks like this is the time for the Thais to claim Pattaya back for themselves, although it was initially created and built for the foreigners and with their money. The Thai people got richer in the recent decade and they need more space for fun and leisure. Pattaya is the best candidate, situated just 90 minutes away from the capital. The Pattaya’s nightlife was never something of interest for the Bangkok visitors. Moreover, it was a source of the shame feelings and an embarrassment for this kind of public (quite hypocritical, as everything Thai). Probably, the current crisis is being used as the opportunity to transform the sex capital of the world into a slightly less boring version of Hua Hin with the main target groups of visitors being Thai middle class families and notorious organized hordes from China.
The most recent decision not to reopen Pattaya’s nightlife venues (while reopening it in Bangkok and Phuket) clearly hints on the governments intentions of transforming Pattaya into something new and different. The 50 year old history of Pattaya as we knew it has come to an end.
Anybody thinking of current crisis in Pattaya as an opportunity for investing in the future nightlife’s recovery may easily lose all their investments with this global change of the city’s positioning.