kinyara

He sold it about a month or so ago.

A rather bizarre take on the massive shortfall in Chinese tourists - we still get more than countries like Kazakhstan, Maldives and Sri Lanka. I'd hazard a guess those countries aren't suffering from the impact of a 75% drop in their largest tourist market.

He clearly does understand that his 90 days resets, he says he re-entered on the 27th August and tried to do it online when he posted on the 15th November, which was the 14 days before permissable date before his 90 day deadline. I will confirm myself in a weeks time as I am in the same situation as the poster you replied to.

No it doesn't, it fits exactly where and when trouble is likely to happen for those single adults here for the nightlife side of things. As the replies pointed out to your post a few days ago, families don't take their kids to a Go-Go bar in Soi Buakhao in the early hours of Sunday morning.

You missed out the single biggest issue for Western markets which is outside of Thailand's control, and that is the current high cost of long haul travel and the continued lower airline capacity compared to pre-pandemic levels. Just reading in another report that there is currently 25% available airline slots spread across the AOT operated airports, when I last checked Western tourist numbers from the larger markets likes of UK, US & Germany were fairly consistent at 20-25% lower than 2019 numbers.

I'm always suspicious of venues that rely on friends endlessly posting positive reviews to promote it, especially when the business model seems to be about selling franchises. It reminds me a lot like Retox in its marketing and we all know how that ended. I pass the one in Jomtien regularly and I've yet to see more than a couple of customers in it which tells me all I need to know, it is also on the site of a previous dedicated fish and chip shop which went through a couple of owners before closing down. I think part of the issue is people tend to associate Fish and Chips with a Friday so while it might be busy that 1 day of the week it might be more of a challenge getting enough customers other 6 days of the week. I suspect the fact they've introduced a lower priced special may be an indication people aren't prepared to pay a premium above what other restaurants are charging for basically the same product, if you ignore the online hype.

Further confirmation tourism from China continues to be in the doldrums despite visa concessions, and the govt is desperately looking around for any headline measure to avoid 2024 being a year of next to no growth in arrivals. Full panic mode.

Indeed, totally pointless window dressing completely ignoring the blindingly obvious of how, when and where they should be policing the centre of town to instill a feeling of safety.

The crimes reported on here tend to be centered around the nightlife areas and the late hours it operates, which is probably why you don't read about families being the victims of crime. I suspect families enjoy perfectly safe holidays in Pattaya doing whatever activities families choose to do, and from what I've seen Thai people tend to make a fuss in a good way of foreign children and are very welcoming.

I wonder how much profit is being made on every pack of A4 paper being photocopied by that office to the left of the main building and who owns that business. It's got to be one of the most profitable businesses in Pattaya given the volume of customers it serves daily.

Airing 7pm - 7.02pm

I never heard Karma mentioned when the Thai boys on the motorbike whacked the foreigner on the back with a stick on Soi Yensabai last week. Lack of education, hatred of Westerners, no parental discipline seemed to be the party line.

Got to feel sorry for that couple on the bike, totally unprovoked violent attack.

Best allocation of resources, 4 groups of 2 police officers permanently patrolling the full length of Beach Road in 1 km stretches each between midnight to 4am. They either want to clean the area up and make people feel safe at night or they don't, forget the one-off shows by top brass like last week and enforce some permanent visible deterrents.

Is Mike Bell okay ?

They want everything of course before and after the pandemic, as many to come and spend as much as possible. I think they have developed a tourist industry more dependent on volume, which on the one hand serves the need to absorb a massive low skilled/low educated labour force, but on the other brings all the negative infrastructure/environmental impacts.

Agreed, in this new government's desperation to be able to point to increased tourist numbers they've now sacrificed visa income from 3 of their 5 biggest markets, China, India and Russia, for potentially the busiest time of the year running from Oct/Nov through to Apr/May. So they at least need to attract a certain level of increased arrivals just to recoup that lost revenue. In a report in The Nation today they quoted the Chinese figure to October 29th, the first month of free visa, and it is almost exactly the same as the previous low figure in September, so zero initial impact. Questionable roll of the dice, time will tell over the next 6 months.

Exactly, the minor inconvenience of an extra hour at Immigration pales into insignificance when you compare it to a good marriage and good family. There is always a better reason to stay when you consider the bigger picture, plus the added benefit for some that they can still have a good moan at the Thai system and authorities. I'll say it again, that the biggest serial Immigration whingers I personally know who banged on about the inconvenience of having to go into immigration for their 90 day reports are the only ones who haven't bothered to switch to doing it online. Says it all to me.

Any particular reason why the " many foreigners looking to leave Thailand " haven't left already ? After all the country has been open for a couple of years now and if the places you mention are so attractive and easy immigration wise why on earth are they still here.

From the OP it sounded like him and a couple of dozen other people had found enough good reasons to stay in Thailand another 30 days.

Not quite as bad as the Chinese shortfall but Indian numbers year to date September are still 23% lower than in 2019. Guess they've got to try something to get their numbers up, remains to be seen like the Chinese whether a simple visa concession will have much of an impact especially given the short length of the average visit.

Sorry to read about your accident just now BritManToo, all the best for your full recovery.

They seek permanent refuge in countries like the UK, they are not looking for a 2 week holiday in the sun. I think you're making light of their situation to have a dig at Thailand.

They never chose to come to Thailand before why would you think they'd want to come now ?

They appear to be realistic, last year they were forecasting 10 million arrivals and achieved 11 million, this year they forecast between 25 - 30 million due to the uncertainty of the Chinese market and it looks like they will achieve 27 million.