Thailand’s tourism – stormy weather ahead

[overherebc]

On 7/15/2019 at 4:36 AM, observer90210 said:

Hand out 40 THB for 1 US $ from tomorrow onwards .....and by the end of the week, guarantee all the taxi cheats will have their cabs full of tourists !....and be more nice and polite with all the decent visitors and do not only bootlick one specific type of tourists....immigration boys also need to chill down, be nicer and stop harassing with their redtape...and then maybe..?

No they won't, they'll put the prices up.

[kingdong]

On 7/17/2019 at 1:16 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

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 Been replaced by tarted up guest houses calling themselves boutique hotels and putting the price up significantly.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"?

paradoxically it isn,t the travellers and the backwaters thatRuin holiday resorts it's massive tourism pattayas a classic example,at the end of the day you can,t make a Silk purse out of a sows ear

[CaptainNemo]

On 7/17/2019 at 2:51 PM, thaibeachlovers said:

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.

Japan hands out 90-day visas to lots of developed countries, and it has plenty of good tourist stuff. I don't think the Japanese are desperate for tourists either, they just have a more sensible attitude.

Most countries in ASEAN limit tourist visas to 30 days, which seems to be rather short-sighted.

Cambodia seems to be making things easier than other ASEAN countries, and it's starting to look more appealling. None of these arbitrary lumps of capital to drop into local bank accounts, just pay a modest visa fee, generate paperwork, it seems a lot more appealing on that front.

 

It won't be hurrumphing principle that stops people from refusing to jump through Thailand's bureaucratic hoops, but not being able to do it, and finding an easier alternative. Most of the farangs left in Thailand will be older, retired ones, and a few businesspeople (perhaps half-Thais) who can tolerate the business environment. I've been round a few countries where the mainland Chinese have arrived in numbers, and I've never heard locals gushing with enthusiasm and optimism, quite the opposite - money talks, sometimes money shouts, but sometimes the locals don't like what it's saying.