kinyara

Is the closure of your favourite bar or restaurant imminent ? Anyone ? ????

Why would anyone want to dilute potential returns by lumping in a load of dud hospitality venues in with ones you think are going to be successful, no sound investor adopts that approach ? I wouldn't invest in every hospitality venue, I'd prefer to invest in the ones I think have a long-term investable track record with, The Sportsman or The Hopf would be a couple of that sort.

2019 : Vietnam tourists to Thailand - 1,048k Thai tourists to Vietnam - 510k I guess Thais want a bit more than a world record breaking cable car ride. ????.

No I'd had to save up a week for the blowout, I think it was 129.

Thought I'd give the newish Jomtien one a try, ordered the particular daily "special" of Chicken and Cashew nuts ( I'd read decent reports of their Thai offerings ), not 1 single cashew nut in evidence and with the main ingredient being sparse I left hungry and disappointed. I was going to say it's a definite case of you get what you pay for, but in my case I didn't ????.

I eat in many of the varied restaurant choices in Central regularly and I don't mind some of Minor Group's food outlets either. I like their diversification both locally and internationally from an investment viewpoint, spreads the risk.

I hadn't realised just how big the expansion of U-Tapao was until I saw the details yesterday as the project kicked off. A planned annual capacity of 60 million visitors with 124 landing slots. Wouldn't be surprised to see airlines like Vietjet flying directly here to capitalise on Pattaya's growing popularity with Vietnamese tourists.

I wouldn't know about those bars, I've chosen never to put a baht of my money into that group's coffers.

Central Pattana, Bangkok Hospital Group, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Minor Group.

It's a commercial enterprise to make Anutin's backers, the Chidchobs even more money through legalising drugs. Your right Jingthing, they've studied the US model and realised how much they will eventually make by cornering the market and wiping out free enterprise by using the power of the state and their political privelege. I personally think it's absolute tragedy for Thailand that this is their main policy masquerading as a health agenda. The biggest bunch of unelected crooks are raping the finances of the country and getting away with it by jailing anyone that questions it. Suddenly there is a shortfall in the monthly military budget since the Patek Phillip slug took over. Give me a break.

The hypothesis you presented was clearly ridiculous, I told you what I believe and others continually tell you, good well run businesses offer their investors the opportunity for success, bad ones don't. If you can't understand that reality I can't really help you. It's not rocket science.

The numbers show they are competing perfectly well even expanding the number of visitors pre-Covid from its already market leading postion. I'd expect the current mega project, just like Suvarnabunmi the last one, to be a positive benefit to this area in the coming years. It has already attacted a major like Sony to choose this area which I look on as a positive sign for the future. I don't have any statistics on the average age of buses serving tourists in Thailand compared to other countries, do you ? What form of transport do you take when you arrive in Vietnam ?

In saying that I recently watched an interview with a foreign manager bigging up his new establishment, how he felt his finger was on the pulse delivering what his customers wanted music and entertainment wise, thought I'd give it a try as he seemed switched on and a personable guy. Experienced the exact scenario as Jacko mentioned, it was all about the DJ indulging himself with the ear blasting car crash dirge that appeals to no-one except the staff partying amongst themselves. I caught the eye of the foreigner at the next table, if there were many customers before they had all cleared out, and he just smiled and shook his head. What made it worse was the manager was actually there. A good example of why there is always a revolving door of unsuccessful businesses in town, I doubt anyone experiencing that place that night for the first time would bother giving it a second chance when there are so many alternatives.

Being stuck in a go-go bar is the stuff of dreams for many not fortunate enough to be in Pattaya. ????

I find staying indoors when it is raining heavily a good policy to avoid one. For tourists in central Pattaya unlucky enough to be caught out I'd recommend jumping on a baht bus or crossing the beach road to Central or T21 for a nice meal, a couple of hours max if that and it drains away. The earlier part of my post which you didn't quote referred to high season when the majority of tourists are here, surely people know it's peak rainy season now and you do run the risk of a temporary flash flood albeit irregularly.

I actually do see it as an investment, without my money and similar like minded customers the business would cease to exist. I don't ask the owner if I can check his books to see what sort of return he's making, Some businesses do well, some do badly and go bust, the key point for me is Pattaya attracts millions of customers, so offer a good product/service that people want and you every chance of doing well. I think it's a good investment if you know what you are doing, same as anywhere in the world.

You mean other than the massive EEC multi billion baht infrastructure plan that is in progress enhancing the rail transport link from Bangkok to Pattaya, expanding and upgrading U-Tapao to offer a more direct air connection for more people ? Once again what else do tourists really need ? I don't see the current mode of transport from Bangkok to Pattaya as being particularly different to any other major capital city in the world, I think it's pretty good personally and the building of Suvarnabunmi was a great boon to Pattaya compared to the old days of Don Muang. I wonder if tourists really go home and say they are not coming back to Pattaya because of the pavements. It doesn't tend to flood in high season, from what I've seen over the year we barely get half a dozen days when it makes the news and it drains off in a couple of hours, I doubt many tourists probably experience a flash flood here just us that live here.

What about the tourist beach areas of Pattaya/Jomtien ? What exactly is it that you think needs to be built to move it further up from top 20 in the world. What do you feel would benefit this city from a tourist standpoint, what are they crying out for ? They've expanded both beaches to host major events for tourists, a great move as far as I'm concerned, and they are in the process of further enhancing the transport network to the city as part of the EEC, ( Eastern Economic Corridor ), plan. Large global corporations seem to have enough confidence to invest here, see my post above re Sony Pictures, so I'm not really seeing what the problem is. NewNative gave you a good rundown of new ventures that have sprung up in the last few years and Big Stars photo of new vs old is a great visual snapshot of the transformation that has happened over the last 30-40 years.

I "invest" my money in my favourite bars/restaurants across the counter and receive an instant dividend in return, that's where my interest in their financial affairs ends. I like to think if they are smart enough to provide me with a good service then they know what they are doing on the financial side of their business, none have failed in the last 3 years which speaks volumes to me. That's not hypothetical that's reality. As tourism continues to recover I can only see their businesses continuing to recover in tandem.

Not according to the government statistics from 2019. Malaysian tourism was worth $3.46 billion whereas UK tourism was worth $2.3 billion. It could well be the gap will widen this year and next due to the increased long-haul cost of travel and the general state of the UK economy. The good thing for Thailand is Malaysian tourists predominantly support tourism in the southern provinces whereas UK and western tourism in general is spread around the big tourist cities elsewhere.

4 years on the airport linking project which I don't think is too bad for a major rail infrastructure project. For example Vietnam has been working on its first ever metro line in Saigon since 2012 and it's still over a year from completion.

It's never been a sector that has interested me share investing wise anywhere in the world, I'm happier to sit back, relax and enjoy their offering as a customer.

There are still plenty of business owners who have confidence in Pattaya's long term future.

Ah yes and Hemingways Pattaya has now replaced it.

Economic uncertainty will definately put some off, a family with a couple of kids are naturally going to feel the impact of flight prices more than a single traveller and if they are only here for a couple of weeks they've got the winter fuel situation to deal with when they get back. However there are a lot that come to get away from winter and I can see their domestic fuel hikes as being more of an incentive to come here and avoid the full impact. I'll be interested to see how the figures eventually come out for the big Western markets like US, UK and Germany for Nov-March compared to 2019.