newnative

I though they were doing something 'soft' with tourism.

Yes.

Condo owners without dogs, including me, thank you.

Maybe widen your horizons a bit. Not every condo is 'a high rise box'. One of the favorite condos my partner and I owned a few years ago in Wong Amat was a large 3 bedroom, 3 bath condo on floor 4 of a 6 story oceanfront building. 25 meters from the ocean and perched on a small cliff, you don't need to be high up to have beautiful ocean views. Only a handful of units on each floor with open walkways. Regular front door with a mailbox like a house--it even had a screen door. Window boxes for flowers by the front porch windows. The 'back porch'--the large balcony--overlooked the pool and ocean. It was like living in a bungalow by the sea.

Greater Pattaya. Huge choice of housing of all types and at all price ranges. Big choice of areas to live, whether it's city center or outer areas. Good health care and choice of hospitals. Two airports less than 1 1/2 hours away. Bangkok 2 hours away for getaway trips. Good shopping choices for all your needs. Pattaya and Jomtien beaches being widened and improved. Movie theaters in English. Entertainment events scheduled throughout the year by the city. Large, diverse expat community. Lots of golf courses and some biking trails. Large choice of restaurants. An interesting, growing area to live with new things coming in all the time.

I don't think it has ever flooded. Several years ago my partner and I viewed a large table map at City Hall that showed 3 underpasses to be built. I don't know if it is still there or not--or if the other 2 underpasses will ever be built.

Makes absolutely no sense and adds yet another complication, as well as resentment, to the process.

Trickle.

The wildest, most pie-in-the-sky predictions I've seen for international tourists for this entire year were in the 10 million range. For him to be thinking 20 million in the 4th quarter shows what a poor job he is doing with managing things and making important decisions. If he believes 20 million international tourists are coming in the 4th quarter, that very wrong information will likely mean bad decisions on both tourism and other things related to tourism. To make good decisions you need to at least start with good, accurate information.

Ridiculous to make the poorly-paid pump attendant have to pay for a customer breaking the law. I worked at a college library. Luckily, I didn't have to pay if a student stole a book. I doubt store clerks have to pay for merchandise customers steal.

Had to click on the article 'cause I had no idea what in the World 'leveraging soft power' was and couldn't imagine how it could possibly relate to tourism. I needn't have bothered. What a load of useless drivel.

I doubt a neighbor would be complaining if the sound was just in the hallway--and I think it's highly unlikely the sound is just confined to the front of your particular door in the hallway. Sound travels and hallway noise can often easily be heard in the condos on that floor--but luckily the noise is usually only temporary, such as a door closing or people talking while they wait for the elevator. I would be objecting, too, if I had to listen to someone disturbing my peace by practicing trombone for several hours--or likely most other musical instruments. Your landlord giving you the 'green light' is meaningless unless he owns the entire apartment building. If you are renting a condo, you need to abide by the condo's by-laws--which usually have a rule about excessive noise. As others have said, you should be practicing somewhere else.

Curious which point of yours I'm 'missing'. The first point you made in your post was: 'Tourism is Thailand's number one cash cow...'. I pointed out that this is incorrect. Can't see what I'm missing there. Your other point was: 'Thai tourists are not going to solve the problem.'. That point I agreed with in my post--having said essentially the same thing in my earlier post. So, I see a correction and an agreement. Have a nice day, too.

Good, good, good.

In 2019, Thailand's best year for tourism, the number 1 generator of income for Thailand was exports, not your claim of tourism. Exports accounted for 60% of the GDP. Tourism was 21.9%. Since this is a thread focused on domestic tourism, I thought the Florida stats were both relevant and interesting. I was quite surprised at the 131 million domestic tourists who visited Florida vs. less than 10 million foreigners. I would have guessed there would have been a larger number of foreigners. Out of curiosity I checked on the number of domestic tourists in Thailand in 2019. Found 167 million 'travelers', although likely some not tourists. Whatever the exact number of tourists in that figure, in both cases it seems that domestic tourism is more important than perhaps originally thought--and helps explain how some tourist businesses have managed to remain open here in Thailand. Despite that large number of Thai domestic travelers, I totally agree with your statement that 'Thai tourists are not going to solve the problem'. And, I never said they would. Apparently, when reading my post you did not get to the final paragraph: As has been said so often, and so obviously, Thailand's tourism industry, unlike Florida's, can't sustain itself on domestic tourism. It needs large numbers of foreign tourists to support the greatly expanded, and still expanding, tourist infrastructure. Pattaya, alone, has three very large new hotels set to open soon--to join the many others large and small that opened in the past 10 years. But, while we wait for the foreign tourists to return, the domestic tourists have helped quite a lot to keep some tourist businesses open, along with the jobs. Nice to see a fair amount of people on the beach this cloudy, thundery, morning--and the parking lot looking rather full at Centara Grand yesterday.

Totally agree with Jacko45k's comment. Earlier in this thread I posted that in 2019 Florida had 131 million domestic tourists visit and about 11 million foreign tourists. Obviously, the vast number of tourist jobs in Florida's number 1 industry, tourism, were being supported by domestic, rather than foreign tourists. True, the 131 million domestic tourists were, in most cases, likely not 'injecting money' from abroad into Florida. But, they were keeping domestic money in circulation, rather than under their mattresses. And, whether you have a hotel job in Orlando or one in Pattaya, you care not a bit where the tourist staying in the room is from. You are happy he has come to town to visit and picked your hotel to stay at--keeping you employed. As has been said so often, and so obviously, Thailand's tourism industry, unlike Florida's, can't sustain itself on domestic tourism. It needs large numbers of foreign tourists to support the greatly expanded, and still expanding, tourist infrastructure. Pattaya, alone, has three very large new hotels set to open soon--to join the many others large and small that opened in the past 10 years. But, while we wait for the foreign tourists to return, the domestic tourists have helped quite a lot to keep some tourist businesses open, along with the jobs. Nice to see a fair amount of people on the beach this cloudy, thundery, morning--and the parking lot looking rather full at Centara Grand yesterday.

Another day, another change from what was said the day before. I try to keep up and, living here, have access to more information than probably most potential tourists in other countries. Like many, I am confused as to what the requirements now are and what they will be in the coming months--if that is even known. Unless they go with something simple like just proof of vaccination the tourist numbers will remain very low. Just too much work with all the current requirements and a vacation shouldn't be work.

Visiting temples as a reason for touring has not been my experience with my Thai relatives. They do merit a number of times a year at their local temple but when we, or they, have gone touring it hasn't been to visit temples--although they'll make a stop at a notable one such as the White Temple in Chiang Mai. Instead, we have taken island trips, toured royal palaces and museums, went on boat rides, gone snorkeling, visited interesting places to shop and eat, toured historical sites, visited different cities, parks, aquariums, nature trails, etc.

Of course domestic travelers can be tourists. You don't have to come from another country to be a tourist. Thailand's domestic tourists have kept a lot of Pattaya's businesses open, along with their jobs, these past two covid years. Fun fact: In 2019, Florida drew 131 million tourists. Of that figure, only 10.9 million were foreign tourists. I imagine Florida tourist businesses appreciate the money spent by all those domestic tourists, as should Thailand with its domestic tourists--and it's more than '...a few baht...'.

Dollar to Thai Baht today: 34.45.

And, why is it 80kph in a hospital zone?

Any hard statistics to back up your claim? I can't find any. What I found was statistics showing that a typical western tourist spent more money than a typical Asian tourist. For example, a Chinese tourist spent on average around 49,000 baht vs. around 71,000 baht for a North American tourist. European tourists, around 69,000 baht. Each western tourist is spending more, but their numbers are far fewer. So, I don't think you can make the claim that '...western tourists spend much more money that (sic) all of your Asian countries put together.'. Fun fact. Middle Eastern tourists spend the most, around 81,000 baht each, but their numbers are so few that they rank next to last in their collective impact, just above Africa. The graph below shows it clearly. As you can see, China tourists, alone, collectively spent more than the tourists of all of Europe. ASEAN country tourists collectively spent over twice as much as the collective amount of tourists from the Americas. South Asia tourists collectively spent more than Oceania tourists. And, we haven't even added in 'Rest East Asia', another sizeable figure that is also more than double that of the 'Americas'.

Young backpackers would be one of the last markets I would pick. Maybe 15 years ago but not today, not with today's tourist infrastructure. I would open the country with no requirements other than vaccination and target Asian countries. That's where the big tourist numbers were in 2019--14 million tourists from Asian countries other than China. They were coming then, they'll continue to come if it's made easy--especially after 2 years of no travel.

Six pages on this--must have struck a nerve. I agree the OP could have brought his own bags or bought them. But, part of me does lament the lack of good service one often finds these days, as well as, apparently, the wholesale abandonment of currying customer loyalty. And, the lack of authority given to front line workers to make exceptions to the rules, as circumstances warrant. I realize plastic bags are discouraged but, as far as I know, I think paper is still ok. I'm surprised that one big Thai department store, which will remain nameless, appears to have abandoned the classic paper department store shopping bag. Seems so short-sighted as it alienates customers like the OP and the bags serve as very inexpensive advertising for the store. Not long ago my partner and I bought 6 fairly expensive, collared shirts at this same store. In saner times, the clerk would have put them in a department store paper bag with handles and the stores logo splashed on the side. Quick and easy. And, off we would go, walking through the mall advertising the store for free. Instead, the clerk very laboriously wrapped up the shirts using some plain, loose paper and a ton of clear tape--like you'd wrap a Christmas package. We had brought bags but we had used them for other purchases. Can't remember if they actually had bags on hand to buy at the counter we used but it was too amusing watching the whole ridiculous gift wrap process--which seemed to be how they were now doing things. And, off we finally went, walking through the mall with our anonymous package.

Ha. So true! Last time we were in Bangkok my fiftysomething partner pointed out one of those un-airconditioned absolute horrors and said he rode them to school when he was young.