Thailand’s tourism – stormy weather ahead

[marcusarelus]

2 minutes ago, chrisandsu said:

So you are saying it’s not cronyism that put them in that position in the first place ? Do you actually know how Thailand works ? To even get into the top schools it takes huge bribes and those bribes continue into university . That takes money and family connections , barely anything is done off their own backs . For you to try and pretend that nepotism is is not the name of the game really makes me doubt your sanity .   

That's exactly what I'm saying.  Many get into college because of scholarships and good grades.  I'm not talking fru fru degrees I'm talking engineers who are tested daily for their expertise.  My wife works for Samsung and they have inspectors from overseas that check everything including record keeping and safety.  I know my wife's friends and colleagues and none of them had rich parents and they all got into school on their merits.  

 

Go to the refinery area in Rayong and take a look at the new construction.  All done by Thai engineers and if they didn't know what they were doing it would blow up.  

 

First time I hired skilled labor here was 1968 and we worked with many decent civil engineers and trained many more.  Who do you think built the port of Rayong and U-Tapao?  

 

My wife and her co workers didn't pay bribes to get into college.  Some do but not everyone.  Get out a bit and meet some of the technical executives in the Maptaphut industrial area.  

[chrisandsu]

2 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

That's exactly what I'm saying.  Many get into college because of scholarships and good grades.  I'm not talking fru fru degrees I'm talking engineers who are tested daily for their expertise.  My wife works for Samsung and they have inspectors from overseas that check everything including record keeping and safety.  I know my wife's friends and colleagues and none of them had rich parents and they all got into school on their merits.  

 

Go to the refinery area in Rayong and take a look at the new construction.  All done by Thai engineers and if they didn't know what they were doing it would blow up.  

 

First time I hired skilled labor here was 1968 and we worked with many decent civil engineers and trained many more.  Who do you think built the port of Rayong and U-Tapao?  

 

My wife and her co workers didn't pay bribes to get into college.  Some do but not everyone.  Get out a bit and meet some of the technical executives in the Maptaphut industrial area.  

Do you know how often there is chemical spills and oil spills around  Mahaphut and the refinery? My grandad built the refinery in rayong in the late 60s .

[mike787]

Based on the newest thread, this one is wrong, Thailand's tourism is ramping up big.

[DrTuner]

42 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

Sure there are reliable methods to calculate expenditures in societies which use cash.  Ask anyone who is involved in computing those figures and they will give you plus or minus accuracy numbers.

Ok cool. So who's the official responsible for computing the daily cash purchases of somtam from a street cart on Soi Buakhao?

[Fex Bluse]

On 7/15/2019 at 8:12 AM, HuskerDo said:

Not uncommon even in the US. I can't tell you how many college grads I've run across who were checking groceries. There isn't anything wrong with working in a grocery store but how is it they couldn't find a better position since they put in 4 years at the university? The answer I think is the grades they attained. Having a college degree means nothing to an employer if they didn't have good grades. A waste of 4 years of life spent partying and running up student debt. Silly. 

MUCH more important than grades achieved is the fact that the Thai economy doesn't have enough middle class jobs for knowledge workers. 

 

The economy is driven by agriculture, factories and tourism, all things that a college degree are not really necessary for. The services industry in Thailand is also fairly undeveloped, meaning it just doesn't require many smart or well-studied people. 

 

The Thai and US economies are almost nothing alike and it's fairly silly to compare them as being similar. 

 

For example, Thailand's agricultural industry employees 30% (some stats say 40%) of the workforce but only produces around 10% of GDP and at a very low efficiency. 

 

CIA Factbook Stats

 

Thailand - 

 

United States - 

[marcusarelus]

8 hours ago, chrisandsu said:

Do you know how often there is chemical spills and oil spills around  Mahaphut and the refinery? My grandad built the refinery in rayong in the late 60s .

I lived and worked around Dow in Texas and other refinery towns for many years.  It is my impression based on the deterioration of the paint job on my cars that the US has far more spills than Thailand.  Siren goes off a lot more in Texas than Thailand. 

 

However having said that It's not a place that would lead the nation in tourism.  Beach is not crowded, water is ugly but the hospitals are good. 

 

I do carry a gas mask with me and that might put off tourists.  I think refineries at night could be a tourist attraction as they are beautiful in the evening. 

 

This is rich Thai country and everybody works.  They even have a Lao town where the manual laborers live and buy substandard products.  

 

I've maybe met your grand dad as I was here in the 60's too.  

[thaibeachlovers]

On ‎7‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 11:16 AM, nickstav said:

Have you noticed how many restaurants have either closed or are for sale here in Hua Hin. Seems like a lot more than usual. And those that are operating are mostly empty. 

Good news IMO. Last time I went to Hua Hin I was disgusted and outraged at all the ILLEGAL encroachment below high tide along the beach. I couldn't even walk along the beach at high tide as the water was waist deep. If ever a town deserved bad karma it's Hua Hin. Also worst price gouging I ever experienced by the songtheaw drivers.

 

Re the bigger picture, the reason is simple GREED, GREED, GREED.

The cheap places to stay have largely vanished- Chaweng is a prime example. Been replaced by tarted up guest houses calling themselves boutique hotels and putting the price up significantly.

Meanwhile, while the hotels have been pricing themselves out of the cheap range, outside, nothing has changed. Still broken, dirty, corrupt, poor service, shoddy, shoddy, shoddy infrastructure, dangerous streets, no pavements, maniac drivers.

The Thai tourist trade was built on cheap and cheerful, but soon as they thought they could get rich, prices of hotels and services went up and up, while quality stayed the same or went down.

Result- the cheap and cheerful tourist that stayed in places like Charlie's Hut, or the small places along the Phangan coast stopped coming. While the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians replaced them, the powers that be thought all was well, but of course it ain't. 

The Bangkok investors that built flash hotels with visions of millions have had the chooks come home to roost.

Actually, they might be the survivors of the debacle, if they can reorientate their business plan to package tourists, but the ones suffering are the low level places that once catered to low end tourists but were seduced by greed.

 

Can it be fixed? The million dollar question.

Somehow, I doubt it. Humpty may not be able to be put back together.

They may be able to improve sufficiently if they can learn the lesson, to attract high end flashpackers, but can they? It would involve all of them, top to bottom, not just changing a few rules and regulations.

 

If they wanted to bring back low end tourists, they could easily, just by bringing in 90 day visa exempt, back to back entry, but would they?

I pity the bargirls and boys that catered for low end farangs- I fear we will never see their like again, once they've seen the light and either gone home, or gone on line.

 

Do I finally get to say "I told you so"?

[thaibeachlovers]

9 hours ago, marcusarelus said:

That's exactly what I'm saying.  Many get into college because of scholarships and good grades.  I'm not talking fru fru degrees I'm talking engineers who are tested daily for their expertise.  My wife works for Samsung and they have inspectors from overseas that check everything including record keeping and safety.  I know my wife's friends and colleagues and none of them had rich parents and they all got into school on their merits.  

 

Go to the refinery area in Rayong and take a look at the new construction.  All done by Thai engineers and if they didn't know what they were doing it would blow up.  

 

First time I hired skilled labor here was 1968 and we worked with many decent civil engineers and trained many more.  Who do you think built the port of Rayong and U-Tapao?  

 

My wife and her co workers didn't pay bribes to get into college.  Some do but not everyone.  Get out a bit and meet some of the technical executives in the Maptaphut industrial area.  

How many high paying engineering jobs do you think are available in LOS? compared to the population, it would be insignificant.

Most of the people that work for companies like Samsung live in 2,000 baht a month rooms in places like Lamphun, and no one would call them wealthy.

 

Yes, people that work for large companies are qualified, but how many times have you had to employ a local "electrician" to work on your house? Incompetent does not even begin to describe them.

[cerox]

It is a good point what I read earlier here to make preparations now and "leave on our terms".

 

For the younger people like me who cannot get retirement visa it is getting a real hassle to stay here. Yes, with ED visas it is possible but new loopholes and "tricks" need to be used all the time. It is getting complicated and time-consuming, and stressful.

Young people, with no family attachments or other attachments in Thailand, do not want to buy Elite card for 20 years or even 5 years (too expensive) - far too long.

If they wanted more people here, they could allow everybody, no matter which age, to deposit 800k and get a visa.

 

Like many people I am preparing - still in the process of reducing my already small belongings, switching my phone back to PrePaid and quitting my Internet fiber contract. In the current climate it does not feel comfortable to have too many things or contracts etc. here. Also brought back a big suitcase with stuff back to my home country last month.

 

I have also realized I am a temporary guest here on (usually) 3 months extensions. Why would a guest have many contracts, vehicles etc.? Grateful for understanding that now.

 

Just thinking about next years Northern smoky season already makes it complicated. There is no way I will be here during this time but Immigration wants to see a "school attendance record" which would be empty for 3 months when leaving the country during smoky season. Most likely CM immigration (because they are relaxed compared to elsewhere) would not mind as they did not mind in 2018 when I did the same, but it just feels uncomfortable - always this underlying fear of not being able to stay here or things changing.

 

I would expect Immigration to continue with the current path and if tourism really takes a sharp drop within the next few years, then in 5 or 10 years it might all reverse and Thailand could be an easy place to live again.

[chrisandsu]

1 hour ago, marcusarelus said:

I lived and worked around Dow in Texas and other refinery towns for many years.  It is my impression based on the deterioration of the paint job on my cars that the US has far more spills than Thailand.  Siren goes off a lot more in Texas than Thailand. 

 

However having said that It's not a place that would lead the nation in tourism.  Beach is not crowded, water is ugly but the hospitals are good. 

 

I do carry a gas mask with me and that might put off tourists.  I think refineries at night could be a tourist attraction as they are beautiful in the evening. 

 

This is rich Thai country and everybody works.  They even have a Lao town where the manual laborers live and buy substandard products.  

 

I've maybe met your grand dad as I was here in the 60's too.  

That’s actually quite funny ???? I used to have a house in Ban Chang ,my wife and I would sit at the restaurants on the beach looking at Las Vegas in the distance and your right it looked quite attractive at night ???? Other then the pollution  I used to love living there as it had a very nice mix of expats and a strong Thai middle class . Plenty of good paying jobs there and my wife was tempted to move back as she was offered a pretty decent starting package (50k to start) but we figured that would be nowhere near enough to pay the school fees at one of the local international schools let alone live . Obviously the Thais that are already sending their kids to the garden and St. Andrews must be making a decent wage . I’d move back tomorrow if the pollution was sorted as I think there is no better living balance anywhere in Thailand . 

[DrTuner]

3 hours ago, cerox said:

I have also realized I am a temporary guest here on (usually) 3 months extensions.

Good, it's quite amazing many don't realize that simple truth. They think they are here to stay, when it says temporary right there on the stamp on the passport. And then buying houses, cars, settling down - all based on a temporary permit to stay. Ready to be kicked out on a seconds notice. The old wisdom of not investing any more than you're willing to walk away from into Thailand is very much valid.

 

Many other countries offer a fairly straightforward ways to get permanent residence permits. In here the PR is protected by a myriad of rules and hoops and a queue five times around the world. It's obvious they want to keep the control to be able to kick out the aliens at their fancy.

[HerbalEd]

On 7/14/2019 at 2:54 PM, ukrules said:

There were staff layoffs in some of the major hotels in Hua Hin during last years low season.

 

I know Thai people who work in the hotels, will be interesting what happens in those same places this year.

 

There should be a boost in European tourist arrivals starting this week through until the end of August due to the summer holiday period, if it doesn't happen then they're going to feel the pain again!

 

There's always lay offs during slow season. It's called "low season" for a reason.

 

[androokery]

I don't know for how many years they (TAT) have been using the slogan "Thailand - Once in a Lifetime". 
 

 

I've seen it on Thai Airways a lot while waiting to disembark. The slogan always struck me as weird. Why don't they want me to come back? 

[DrTuner]

14 minutes ago, androokery said:

I don't know for how many years they (TAT) have been using the slogan "Thailand - Once in a Lifetime". 
 

 

I've seen it on Thai Airways a lot while waiting to disembark. The slogan always struck me as weird. Why don't they want me to come back? 

An amazing display of honesty from TAT. Must have been a mistake.

[marcusarelus]

7 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

If they wanted to bring back low end tourists, they could easily, just by bringing in 90 day visa exempt, back to back entry, but would they?

I pity the bargirls and boys that catered for low end farangs- I fear we will never see their like again, once they've seen the light and either gone home, or gone on line.

 

Do I finally get to say "I told you so"?

I don't think those are tourists.  Bums or penniless backpackers more like it.  The problem is that class of persons is now growing in China and India and would replace our well mannered - house broken Western bums.  

[thaibeachlovers]

4 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

I don't think those are tourists.  Bums or penniless backpackers more like it.  The problem is that class of persons is now growing in China and India and would replace our well mannered - house broken Western bums.  

Maybe so, but they stayed at low end places and employed many more locals than the big hotels do. Better for poor Thais than flashpackers.

[BernieOnTour]

On 7/15/2019 at 6:42 AM, RobboR said:

Funnily enough people aren't particularly keen on supporting or going on holiday in a Junta run country.

Dream a little bit more!

 

Vietnam and Cambodia on the rise ...

People travelling to Egypt, Dubai, Africa ...

[BernieOnTour]

8 hours ago, cerox said:

It is a good point what I read earlier here to make preparations now and "leave on our terms".

 

For the younger people like me who cannot get retirement visa it is getting a real hassle to stay here. Yes, with ED visas it is possible but new loopholes and "tricks" need to be used all the time. It is getting complicated and time-consuming, and stressful.

Young people, with no family attachments or other attachments in Thailand, do not want to buy Elite card for 20 years or even 5 years (too expensive) - far too long.

If they wanted more people here, they could allow everybody, no matter which age, to deposit 800k and get a visa.

 

Like many people I am preparing - still in the process of reducing my already small belongings, switching my phone back to PrePaid and quitting my Internet fiber contract. In the current climate it does not feel comfortable to have too many things or contracts etc. here. Also brought back a big suitcase with stuff back to my home country last month.

 

I have also realized I am a temporary guest here on (usually) 3 months extensions. Why would a guest have many contracts, vehicles etc.? Grateful for understanding that now.

 

Just thinking about next years Northern smoky season already makes it complicated. There is no way I will be here during this time but Immigration wants to see a "school attendance record" which would be empty for 3 months when leaving the country during smoky season. Most likely CM immigration (because they are relaxed compared to elsewhere) would not mind as they did not mind in 2018 when I did the same, but it just feels uncomfortable - always this underlying fear of not being able to stay here or things changing.

 

I would expect Immigration to continue with the current path and if tourism really takes a sharp drop within the next few years, then in 5 or 10 years it might all reverse and Thailand could be an easy place to live again.

You are living in CM?

Expect , that your place is quickly filled up by Chinese from the mainland! 

 

They live with it and find their way around it. More and more are buying property here and staying longer - the CM property bubble is mainly fueled by Chinese. Even well-off Thais are starting already to complain about the fees at International Schools - there are hordes of Chinese sending their kids to International Schools in CM, because they are still cheaper than in China.

[BernieOnTour]

2 minutes ago, RobboR said:

I was talking about Thailand Bernie. How people don't want to come here as it's under military rule

I was also talking about Thailand. IMO, the majority of tourists give a shit about the P.C. application of democracy. That’s, why I mentioned the other countries.

Weather, cost, crime rate are far more important factors.

[KhaoYai]

On 7/15/2019 at 1:05 PM, marcusarelus said:

  On 7/15/2019 at 12:18 PM, Nowisee said:

 The Thai logic is raise the prices to make up of the loss, guaranteeing shuttering the business... 555

On 7/15/2019 at 1:05 PM, marcusarelus said:

Of course not.  Get out and look.

 

Thailand's best low-season travel deals

I think he would have been correct 10 years ago - it was popular practice then. Thailand's hotels seem to have finally worked out that such practice is counter productive.

[cerox]

Bernie,

yes, unfortunately the Chinese travel in groups so much, because the Chinese girls look so hot ????

The property bubble, for me it is more of a good thing, because it keeps rent affordable. In the Philippines I would love to easily (lots of supply) rent a condo as here.

[Moo 2]

Farangs are also used to live in free democratic countries, when they arrive here and see loads of

cops and militaries everywhere, they start feeling uncomfortable and a bit stressed.

Thailand is no longer projecting a good image of itself. Of course, the baht is not helping neither as

farangs coming to Thailand are middle/low class tourists who are looking at value for their money

before looking at the scenery.  

[gearbox]

On 7/17/2019 at 10:16 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

 

Re the bigger picture, the reason is simple GREED, GREED, GREED.

The cheap places to stay have largely vanished- Chaweng is a prime example. Been replaced by tarted up guest houses calling themselves boutique hotels and putting the price up significantly.

 

Hmm, according to the farangs in Samui all should be good. Their asking prices for real estate are better suited to Sydney or San Francisco than Thailand, and if they are selling a business here it always makes fabulous profits. 

 

Many of the restaurants and bars in Samui are owned by farangs, maybe we should ask them politely to lower the prices and not to be greedy? 

[HuskerDo]

On 7/14/2019 at 6:10 PM, Lingba said:

Thailand is long past immediate repairation...it will take at least 2 generations and a lot of re education to get back to being attractive

That's true of a lot of Western women as well. ???? 

[chrisandsu]

18 minutes ago, HuskerDo said:

That's true of a lot of Western women as well. ???? 

Western women can be way more attractive than Thai women . Thai women just tend to fall for the bs easier . Hence why half of you guys are here . 

[HuskerDo]

3 minutes ago, chrisandsu said:

Western women can be way more attractive than Thai women . Thai women just tend to fall for the bs easier . Hence why half of you guys are here . 

"CAN BE" but aren't. Just because western women are 3 times the size of Thai women doesn't make them three times more attractive. ???? 

[chrisandsu]

2 minutes ago, HuskerDo said:

"CAN BE" but aren't. Just because western women are 3 times the size of Thai women doesn't make them three times more attractive. ???? 

You could be talking about Thai women from 3 generations ago ? I see a lot of fatties these days ! You can’t  tell me a chubby essarn girl is any better ? 

[HuskerDo]

3 minutes ago, chrisandsu said:

You could be talking about Thai women from 3 generations ago ? I see a lot of fatties these days ! You can’t  tell me a chubby essarn girl is any better ? 

I'll put it this way. There are SO MANY OBESE women in the U.S. (men too) that are killing themselves with heart disease, diabetes, etc that, well, it's sad. Do some research on the obesity level in the U.S. and England. Off the <deleted> charts. For any "chubby" (as you call them) woman in Thailand there are hundreds of 300 pound women in the West and many of them actually think they look HOT. Go figure.

[kingdong]

On 9/17/2019 at 3:57 PM, HuskerDo said:

"CAN BE" but aren't. Just because western women are 3 times the size of Thai women doesn't make them three times more attractive. ???? 

Be fair,they,ve a also got 3 times the attitude

 

[kingdong]

On 7/20/2019 at 6:01 PM, gearbox said:

 

Hmm, according to the farangs in Samui all should be good. Their asking prices for real estate are better suited to Sydney or San Francisco than Thailand, and if they are selling a business here it always makes fabulous profits. 

 

Many of the restaurants and bars in Samui are owned by farangs, maybe we should ask them politely to lower the prices and not to be greedy? 

Don,t waste your breath,the lack of punters will tell them that.