Sluggish Recovery for Pattaya Tourism

[snoop1130]

Sluggish Recovery for Pattaya Tourism

 

 

CHONBURI, Nov 10 (TNA) –  Pattaya tourism is struggling to survive and small – scale business operators could be forced to close to avoid further loss, said Chairman of the Chonburi Tourism Industry Council.

 

The chairman, Thanet Supornsahatrangsi said about the current situation of the tourism industry in Pattaya, hit by the Covid-19 pandemic that the city recorded visitors on weekends and public holidays.

 

About half of hotels and tourist sites remain opened. If the impacts prolong, small-scale operators, who suffer cash flow problems could be forced to shut down their businesses to avoid further loss, he said.

 

Full Story: https://tna.mcot.net/english-news/line-today-english-news-580701

 

-- © Copyright TNA 2020-11-10

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

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[olfu]

I hope soi 6 is waiting for me.

[Redvic]

Pattaya has been slowly dying the last 5-6 years. Never mind using covid as an excuse. 

[MasterBaker]

What would be the reason for tourists to come to Pattaya?

[faraday]

10 minutes ago, MasterBaker said:

What would be the reason for tourists to come to Pattaya?

To explore the culture of Thailand.

 

[Techno Viking]

16 minutes ago, MasterBaker said:

What would be the reason for tourists to come to Pattaya?

 

To annoy the expats that are currently enjoying the peace and tranquility !!

[jacko45k]

37 minutes ago, MasterBaker said:

What would be the reason for tourists to come to Pattaya?

Ask all those who pour out of Bangkok at weekend to come race all over the roads and drive like asses! 

[newnative]

1 hour ago, Redvic said:

Pattaya has been slowly dying the last 5-6 years. Never mind using covid as an excuse. 

Nonsense.

[ChakaKhan]

1 hour ago, MasterBaker said:

What would be the reason for tourists to come to Pattaya?

For the Family Environment and the Walking streets touts..Ping pong shows..etc... Daddy Look! Ping pong!

[mikebell]

Another staggeringly insightful spokesperson stating the bleedin' obvious.

[phantomfiddler]

46 minutes ago, newnative said:

Nonsense.

I do believe the poster to be correct, having lived here for 40 years i would say that everything was on the steady increase until 5-6 years ago, when a noticeable decline started to show ????

Definitely NOT nonsense !

[Pravda]

2 hours ago, MasterBaker said:

What would be the reason for tourists to come to Pattaya?

 

69 baht breakfast. 

 

99 if you want black pudding. 

[Kerryd]

F.F.S. people, they are talking about THAI tourists, not foreigners.

Thai tourists are not coming to Pattaya to visit go-go bars and soi 6. They'll come for events (like music festivals/fireworks competitions, etc), to go to the beach (mostly to sit on the beach and picnic, not to swim in the ocean) or to visit something "out of the ordinary", of which Pattaya has little to offer.

In the last 4 weeks I've gone on 3 trips with my Thai friends. One was a 6 day/5 night trip to the North-East tip of the country, taking in Korat, Nakhon Phanom, Bueng Kan, Chiang Khan and Phu Thap Boek. We made numerous stops at various temples, scenic lookouts, tourist attractions and, of course, 3-4 restaurants each day.
The 2nd trip was 3 days/2 nights to a bike party in Cha-am. (I made a solo detour to visit a couple places in Kanchanaburi along the way.)
The 3rd trip (before the other 2 actually) was an overnight camping trip at a beach in Sattahip. 

Every where we went, there were hordes of Thai tourists. Tour buses crowding the parking lots. Hotels booked full. Line-ups at tourist attractions. (And I was literally the only foreigner except at the bike party.)

There is a lot of "domestic" tourism going on, but Pattaya isn't a prime destination for most unless there is something special happening. You don't drive/ride a thousand kms to Pattaya to spend the afternoon having a picnic on the beach or to visit an overpriced shopping mall that sells the same stuff the malls "back home" do.
None of the temples here are really that spectacular. There's no real "historic" or ancient or natural sites (like waterfalls)  worth mentioning.

The people going to the beach are probably from nearby areas (this side of Bangkok), probably hoping they won't be as crowded as the ones closer to where they're from. People from Udon or Ubon aren't coming here for that. A lot of people will drive down from Bangkok Friday afternoon, spend some time Saturday on the beach, party in a karaoke restaurant then go back to Bangkok Sunday afternoon. I doubt many people from Korat or Sara Buri would do the same thing though.

But they might come for a Fireworks Competition or Music Festival or some other such special event that would make it worthwhile to travel here. Otherwise, they'll visit other places where there are things worth seeing. Yeah, Nong Nooch is nice, but unless you are already going to be in the area, you aren't driving all the way to Pattaya just to see that one place.

Pattaya's tourism market is built around "foreign" tourists, not domestic. Doesn't matter if they are "old, fat, white guys" looking for one thing or "families", Pattaya is set up to accommodate either (or both).
Plenty of things to see and do for either type but the thing they have in common is that they are (mostly) foreign. Foreign tourists will fly here to spend their holidays on the beach and in the bars. Or visiting crocodile farms and water parks and "floating markets" with a few temples and other culture sights added in if there's time.

Thai tourists ? Meh. They have most of that wherever they already are. Why go to Pattaya for the same thing ?

[spidermike007]

2 hours ago, Redvic said:

Pattaya has been slowly dying the last 5-6 years. Never mind using covid as an excuse. 

 

Thank you. But, it will be used an an excuse. Anything other than taking personal responsibility for the problems they created, will be used extensively. Same applies to Chiang Mai (massive over development, and horrendous traffic and air quality) Phuket, and Samui. 

 

These issues and problems were becoming apparent long before Covid. And none were being addressed. Tourism had been declining for years already. The numbers were up. But the quality of tourist was way down. And according to everyone I spoke to last year, the year before and the year before that, income was way, way down. So, "this blame it all on Covid scenario" is somewhat disengenuous. Sure, Covid is huge. And the drop now is stunning. But, my point is there were plenty of issues prior to Covid. And are any of them being addressed?

Major changes need to be made, if Thailand wants to continue to enjoy the cash cow of tourism. Travelers these days simply have too many choices. Creativity is required. Progress needs to be made. Thailand cannot continue to be one of the least progressive nations on earth, and expect foreigners to tolerate that degree of ignorance. These seeds were planted over a decade ago. The hapless army has accelerated the process dramatically. If Thailand had a smart and competent PM, a qualified health minister, and a slightly intelligent tourism minister, they would stop this nonsense, and realize no tourism program requiring quarantine will ever work. Period. Even without quarantine, the numbers will be relatively small. But, at least it would be something. Testing is the answer for the immediate problems. 
 
The Thai army. Moving Thailand backwards, and inflicting untold pain on it's people. Time to go, guys. The people need competency, and they are speaking loudly now. 
 

[newnative]

4 minutes ago, phantomfiddler said:

I do believe the poster to be correct, having lived here for 40 years i would say that everything was on the steady increase until 5-6 years ago, when a noticeable decline started to show ????

Definitely NOT nonsense !

      Decline of what in the last 5-6 years?  Bars catering to Western men?  I'll give you that.  But, besides that, Greater Pattaya pre-covid was not in decline.  What actually happened in the '5-6 years' you mentioned?

     Terminal 21. Two large new water parks.  A new hospital.  D'Luck Theater. Tiffany expansion.  Colosseum.  Numerous large, nice hotels came in--including Grande Centre Point, Mytt, Ozo, Brighton, Palazzo, the Amari Suites addition, and lots of smaller, boutique hotels.   Tons of new, large condo projects, way too numerous to mention.

     This is all private industry.  Private companies don't move into a city in decline.  Mercedes was already in Pattaya.  If Pattaya was in decline, why ditch your old dealership and spend the money to build an even bigger, fancier one? Wouldn't it be wiser to just hunker down and keep the old dealership?  Mercedes looked at the data, look at the sales, looked at the trends, and decided it needed bigger and better in Pattaya.  But, not just Mercedes.  In your same period, Audi came to town.  And Subaru. And MG with not one but two new dealerships.  Plus Mini and BMW. And new Nissan and Honda dealerships to augment the ones already here.  

     Other retail upgraded as well.  Index moved out of what I thought was a perfectly ok store and built a much nicer and larger one across the street.  Home Pro added a second outlet.  HomeWorks upgraded as well into Baan and Beyond.  Chic Republic came to town.  Central Center did a major upgrade into Central Marina.  

     I could go on but you get the picture.  I know someone will post that they talked to several people and they said their business was bad even before covid.  Could be--for some businesses.  But, that doesn't mean all of Pattaya was declining pre-covid.  

    

[shackleton]

I think we are all aware  Pattaya is mainly dependent on local tourism just now

The ones suffering are the bars  who are dependant on foreign tourists

Some getting by with the foreign Expats  that are here

For how long they remain in business who knows

 

[Caldera]

I'll enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasts. I've visited Pattaya more often this year alone than in the last five years combined.

[hotchilli]

17 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Pattaya tourism is struggling to survive and small – scale business operators could be forced to close to avoid further loss, said Chairman of the Chonburi Tourism Industry Council.

Finger on the pulse as usual.

 

[hotchilli]

1 hour ago, Pravda said:

 

69 baht breakfast. 

 

99 if you want black pudding. 

Is the black pudding sliced or whole?

[BigStar]

2 hours ago, phantomfiddler said:

I do believe the poster to be correct, having lived here for 40 years i would say that everything was on the steady increase until 5-6 years ago, when a noticeable decline started to show ????

Definitely NOT nonsense !

Utter nonsense, as @newnative has explained above. He might also have mentioned the new Hilton being planned:

 

Situated in North Pattaya, Hilton Garden Inn Pattaya City will be part of a mixed-use development featuring more than 2,000 square meters of commercial and retail space as well as an adjacent 427-unit residential tower. Located close to Pattaya Beach, a four-kilometer crescent coastline packed with a variety of beach activities, including parasailing and jet skiing, the hotel will also be a short drive from the new Terminal 21 mall and Central Festival Pattaya, the city’s flagship shopping mall, which is home to more than 370 retail stores, restaurants and bars.

 

Hilton Garden Inn Pattaya City will feature 315 rooms ranging from 26-square-meter to 52-square-meter Two Bay Suites. Guests will have access to an all-day restaurant, bar and fitness center, along with on-site parking.

 

    --Hilton Garden Inn Launch in Pattaya to Strengthen Hilton Presence in Thailand

 

 

Whoops. Confining your visits to Soi Buakhao, you may not have noticed. But so with many others here. Blind as bats. Goes to illustrate once again the difference between real Pattaya and the cartoonish virtual world of TVF Pattaya.

Edited November 11, 2020 by BigStar

[Kerryd]

Keep in mind that a lot of the "big" projects were planned and financed back when Pattaya was still "roaring". In other words, in the years before TAT decided to stop targeting "Westerners" and instead put most of their promotional efforts towards attracting Indian and Chinese tourists.

Those huge malls, hotels and condo projects don't just happen over night. The people building them usually have a lot of experience (and high priced help) to determine if a project is even feasible, years before the first shovel touches the ground. 

I'm sure the developers wouldn't have started a number of those projects if they'd known that TAT was going to prioritize hordes of low budget tourists instead of the crowds of higher spending tourists from other regions. TAT's plan was 2 fold. Reduce the number of "white" tourists (and thus reduce the "sex trade") and replace them with lower spending tourists, but in greater numbers in the hopes that would offset the loss from previous group. (Remember that the current PM and a previous Tourism Minister "vowed" to get rid of the sex trade in Thailand and this was one way they thought would do it.)

I used to spend a lot of time on Walking Street and other "entertainment" areas in the city. I loved sitting in a bar a couple rows back from the street and watching the people go by. I've often said it was better "reality TV" than any of the garbage "reality TV" shows.
For years (1993-2012 roughly) - 95%(+) of the "foreign" foot traffic in those areas was "white". Aussies, Americans, Canadians, UK, Scandinavians, Russians and assorted EU types.

Chinese tour groups ? So rare that when the first ones started showing up, people would stop and stare.
Indians and Arabs were also an infrequent site (aside from a certain section of Pattaya and all the tailor shops of course). 

But then it changed. Quickly. Within a couple years, less than half the foot traffic was "Westerners". Soon you were noticing the westerners more because they were the ones standing out in the crowd.
By then, many of the "local" westerners had relocated to places like LK Metro. Fewer hawkers and ladyboys to deal with. 

Many businesses in the entertainment areas started having problems. Lots of people on the street, but they weren't spending any money. When a guy (Indian) goes into a beer bar and tries to barter down the price of the cheapest draft beer because he's brought 4 friends with him, and they end up buying a single beer (at the regular price) and sit there sharing it for nearly and hour, you know the bar isn't making money. 
(And yes, that actually happened at a bar while I was sitting there talking to the owner. In a go-go bar he owned, I watched a guy sit for 2 hours trying to get girls to sit on his lap so he could grope their boobs and @ss and when the girls stopped coming over to him, he finally left, with half his original drink still sitting on the table. I checked my "bin" just to see where I was at and was nearly at 2,000 baht in the same time period.)

The government was crowing about how much the Chinese and Indians were spending but it was BS. They aren't spending anywhere near as much as the Westerners used to. You don't hear people referring to the Indians and Chinese as "1 week millionaires", unlike how they used to refer to the Western tourists as "2 week millionaires". 
(Western tourists tend to have longer holidays and spend like they won the lottery on them, even though the reality is they may have been saving for years for that one trip.)

Some of you may remember the kerfuffle over the "zero dollar" tour groups coming from China. A lot of them. The tourists paid for "all inclusive" deals back home, the tour groups made cut-rate deals with various hotels/restaurants/attractions and when the tourists arrived here, they wouldn't spend a single baht on anything. 
It was news on a national level for awhile. The numbers of Chinese arriving made the TAT numbers look good, but despite how many there were, they weren't giving the economy anywhere near the boost that was expected.

Many business owners had to start cutting back, long before covid. One motorcycle club I knew in 2008 had about 30 members, all business owners. 10 years later I think only 3 still had Harleys as the "luxury" items are the first to go when things get tight and you need money. 
One guy back then had 3 go-gos and 4 beer bars. He had to dump most of them and the 1 beer bar and 1 go-go he still has are closed (no business). He thinks it could be a couple years before they could open again.
A number of the other business owners also ended up closing their businesses and moving on. Meanwhile, Walking Street was crammed with people. People who were just walking. Not spending.
(Like the crowds that roam through the Red Light District in Amsterdam, gawking at all the women in the windows but never actually "sampling" any of them.)

Yes, there are a lot of Chinese, Indians and Arabs in the "high end" shops in Bangkok, and yes, they might spend like they've just emptied the treasury, but their numbers are a scant fraction of the overall total of those groups. Most of the arrivals seem to be of the "we spent everything we had just getting here and have almost no money to spend on anything now that we are here" type.

Various gov'ts have been, for years, trying to remodel Pattaya as a "family" resort but even then, they are thinking about "foreign" families, not domestic ones. 

Unless Pattaya starts hosting more "events" that will attract more than just the usual weekend crowds, business here (small and large) will continue to feel the pinch. 

But what can they do ? They don't have the sports facilities to do much more than a regional volleyball or ping pong tournament. They've been doing golf for decades but I've yet to meet a Thai that golfs (yes, there are Thai golfers. I know. However, in all the years I've been coming and living here I've yet to meet one.) Even hosting a few more golf tournaments each year won't add much to the bottom line.

They do a small sailing regatta once a year. Doesn't attract much of a crowd. 
The Burapa Bike Week draws huge crowds from around SE Asia, but that's once a year and only 3-4 days (and I think most people wouldn't want any more than that any ways). 

There simply isn't a lot in Pattaya to make it a preferred destination for Thai tourists.

Quite frankly, they need to be hosting a major event every 2-3 weeks really, if they want to boost the local economy. At least until this covid business is over and they can get back to catering to foreign tourists again.

Which may take a couple years the way things are going. If we're still around in a couple years that is, the way things are going.
 

[sharecropper]

I'm convinced the only reason the government is falling over themselves to get the Zero Dollar tours back is because they - and connected persons - make billions of baht in backhanders, permitting them to come here. That explains the unseemly obsessive haste to get these low-spending groups back, ignoring the fact that most tourism-oriented businesses, unconnected with the Zero Dollar Cartels, make very little from their presence.

[ben2talk]

At least they'll know that any new tourists, or people on world tours, won't be seen unless they have taken the trouble to display bank records to prove a minimum of about half a million baht over the last six months before booking.

[newnative]

21 minutes ago, Kerryd said:

Keep in mind that a lot of the "big" projects were planned and financed back when Pattaya was still "roaring". In other words, in the years before TAT decided to stop targeting "Westerners" and instead put most of their promotional efforts towards attracting Indian and Chinese tourists.

Those huge malls, hotels and condo projects don't just happen over night. The people building them usually have a lot of experience (and high priced help) to determine if a project is even feasible, years before the first shovel touches the ground. 

I'm sure the developers wouldn't have started a number of those projects if they'd known that TAT was going to prioritize hordes of low budget tourists instead of the crowds of higher spending tourists from other regions. TAT's plan was 2 fold. Reduce the number of "white" tourists (and thus reduce the "sex trade") and replace them with lower spending tourists, but in greater numbers in the hopes that would offset the loss from previous group. (Remember that the current PM and a previous Tourism Minister "vowed" to get rid of the sex trade in Thailand and this was one way they thought would do it.)

I used to spend a lot of time on Walking Street and other "entertainment" areas in the city. I loved sitting in a bar a couple rows back from the street and watching the people go by. I've often said it was better "reality TV" than any of the garbage "reality TV" shows.
For years (1993-2012 roughly) - 95%(+) of the "foreign" foot traffic in those areas was "white". Aussies, Americans, Canadians, UK, Scandinavians, Russians and assorted EU types.

Chinese tour groups ? So rare that when the first ones started showing up, people would stop and stare.
Indians and Arabs were also an infrequent site (aside from a certain section of Pattaya and all the tailor shops of course). 

But then it changed. Quickly. Within a couple years, less than half the foot traffic was "Westerners". Soon you were noticing the westerners more because they were the ones standing out in the crowd.
By then, many of the "local" westerners had relocated to places like LK Metro. Fewer hawkers and ladyboys to deal with. 

Many businesses in the entertainment areas started having problems. Lots of people on the street, but they weren't spending any money. When a guy (Indian) goes into a beer bar and tries to barter down the price of the cheapest draft beer because he's brought 4 friends with him, and they end up buying a single beer (at the regular price) and sit there sharing it for nearly and hour, you know the bar isn't making money. 
(And yes, that actually happened at a bar while I was sitting there talking to the owner. In a go-go bar he owned, I watched a guy sit for 2 hours trying to get girls to sit on his lap so he could grope their boobs and @ss and when the girls stopped coming over to him, he finally left, with half his original drink still sitting on the table. I checked my "bin" just to see where I was at and was nearly at 2,000 baht in the same time period.)

The government was crowing about how much the Chinese and Indians were spending but it was BS. They aren't spending anywhere near as much as the Westerners used to. You don't hear people referring to the Indians and Chinese as "1 week millionaires", unlike how they used to refer to the Western tourists as "2 week millionaires". 
(Western tourists tend to have longer holidays and spend like they won the lottery on them, even though the reality is they may have been saving for years for that one trip.)

Some of you may remember the kerfuffle over the "zero dollar" tour groups coming from China. A lot of them. The tourists paid for "all inclusive" deals back home, the tour groups made cut-rate deals with various hotels/restaurants/attractions and when the tourists arrived here, they wouldn't spend a single baht on anything. 
It was news on a national level for awhile. The numbers of Chinese arriving made the TAT numbers look good, but despite how many there were, they weren't giving the economy anywhere near the boost that was expected.

Many business owners had to start cutting back, long before covid. One motorcycle club I knew in 2008 had about 30 members, all business owners. 10 years later I think only 3 still had Harleys as the "luxury" items are the first to go when things get tight and you need money. 
One guy back then had 3 go-gos and 4 beer bars. He had to dump most of them and the 1 beer bar and 1 go-go he still has are closed (no business). He thinks it could be a couple years before they could open again.
A number of the other business owners also ended up closing their businesses and moving on. Meanwhile, Walking Street was crammed with people. People who were just walking. Not spending.
(Like the crowds that roam through the Red Light District in Amsterdam, gawking at all the women in the windows but never actually "sampling" any of them.)

Yes, there are a lot of Chinese, Indians and Arabs in the "high end" shops in Bangkok, and yes, they might spend like they've just emptied the treasury, but their numbers are a scant fraction of the overall total of those groups. Most of the arrivals seem to be of the "we spent everything we had just getting here and have almost no money to spend on anything now that we are here" type.

Various gov'ts have been, for years, trying to remodel Pattaya as a "family" resort but even then, they are thinking about "foreign" families, not domestic ones. 

Unless Pattaya starts hosting more "events" that will attract more than just the usual weekend crowds, business here (small and large) will continue to feel the pinch. 

But what can they do ? They don't have the sports facilities to do much more than a regional volleyball or ping pong tournament. They've been doing golf for decades but I've yet to meet a Thai that golfs (yes, there are Thai golfers. I know. However, in all the years I've been coming and living here I've yet to meet one.) Even hosting a few more golf tournaments each year won't add much to the bottom line.

They do a small sailing regatta once a year. Doesn't attract much of a crowd. 
The Burapa Bike Week draws huge crowds from around SE Asia, but that's once a year and only 3-4 days (and I think most people wouldn't want any more than that any ways). 

There simply isn't a lot in Pattaya to make it a preferred destination for Thai tourists.

Quite frankly, they need to be hosting a major event every 2-3 weeks really, if they want to boost the local economy. At least until this covid business is over and they can get back to catering to foreign tourists again.

Which may take a couple years the way things are going. If we're still around in a couple years that is, the way things are going.
 

     As I said in my earlier post, someone will be along to give some examples that things were bad pre-covid.  And, here you are.  Most of your examples are focused on western tourists and the businesses and areas catering to them.  Nobody disputes that the demographics of Pattaya are changing.  However, 30 motorbike club members in 2008 and 3 today is largely meaningless in deciding whether Pattaya was in decline pre-covid.  We could maybe say that western bike membership was declining but even that is debatable--perhaps other clubs opened in other areas of town.  Instead of just focusing on what closed, also focus on what took its place.  A western bar closed, Terminal 21 opened.  

    Yes, projects are planned in advance--which actually proves my point, not yours.  All those private companies I mentioned--and many others--studied the data and liked what they saw--which was not a city in decline.  The tourist demographic has been changing for a number of years now.  If these companies didn't like the tourists trends, they had ample time to shelve their projects.  Amari, for example, owns the land that its new family-oriented wing was recently built on.  It would have been easy to shelve the project and leave the land empty if Pattaya was in decline 6 years ago, as the earlier poster claims.   Instead, they found they needed a new addition dedicated to families--a growing market and one that wanted suites.

    Even now, with covid, a number of projects are still going forward, some of which could have been shelved as construction had not yet started.  One example is the big project recently started across the street from Central Festival.  Another is Centre Point 2.  The Once project on Third Road. The new highrise hotel on Naklua Road.

     An ongoing theme with TVF posters is that Pattaya does not have anything to offer other than sex.  How many times have we heard 'why would anyone want to come to Pattaya?'  Only special events will get people to come.  But, clearly, tourists were coming to Pattaya year-round in very large numbers pre-covid--even when there were no special events going on.  Thais are still coming on weekends in fairly large numbers. 

       And, of course, along with this the usual, oft-repeated corollary: non-western tourists don't spend any money.  Which begs the question as to why the Pattaya boat operators complain bitterly every time the Chinese stop coming--first after the boat sinking a few years ago and now just the other day with covid.  They are a powerful group so they are interviewed and an article is written but there's no doubt that many other less-powerful local laid-off tourist workers in other businesses dependent on Chinese tourists are saying the same thing.  

     

[jacko45k]

3 hours ago, hotchilli said:

Finger on the pulse as usual.

 

Exactly where, I would rather not say.

[Golden Triangle]

So nice to see the Rose Tinted Spectacles brigade defending QUOTES, the rest of us can see it for what it really is.

[BigStar]

3 hours ago, Kerryd said:

Keep in mind that a lot of the "big" projects were planned and financed back when Pattaya was still "roaring". In other words, in the years before TAT decided to stop targeting "Westerners" and instead put most of their promotional efforts towards attracting Indian and Chinese tourists.

Those huge malls, hotels and condo projects don't just happen over night. The people building them usually have a lot of experience (and high priced help) to determine if a project is even feasible, years before the first shovel touches the ground. 

I'm sure the developers wouldn't have started a number of those projects if they'd known that TAT was going to prioritize hordes of low budget tourists instead of the crowds of higher spending tourists from other regions. TAT's plan was 2 fold. Reduce the number of "white" tourists (and thus reduce the "sex trade") and replace them with lower spending tourists, but in greater numbers in the hopes that would offset the loss from previous group. (Remember that the current PM and a previous Tourism Minister "vowed" to get rid of the sex trade in Thailand and this was one way they thought would do it.)

I used to spend a lot of time on Walking Street and other "entertainment" areas in the city. I loved sitting in a bar a couple rows back from the street and watching the people go by. I've often said it was better "reality TV" than any of the garbage "reality TV" shows.
For years (1993-2012 roughly) - 95%(+) of the "foreign" foot traffic in those areas was "white". Aussies, Americans, Canadians, UK, Scandinavians, Russians and assorted EU types.

Chinese tour groups ? So rare that when the first ones started showing up, people would stop and stare.
Indians and Arabs were also an infrequent site (aside from a certain section of Pattaya and all the tailor shops of course). 

But then it changed. Quickly. Within a couple years, less than half the foot traffic was "Westerners". Soon you were noticing the westerners more because they were the ones standing out in the crowd.
By then, many of the "local" westerners had relocated to places like LK Metro. Fewer hawkers and ladyboys to deal with. 

Many businesses in the entertainment areas started having problems. Lots of people on the street, but they weren't spending any money. When a guy (Indian) goes into a beer bar and tries to barter down the price of the cheapest draft beer because he's brought 4 friends with him, and they end up buying a single beer (at the regular price) and sit there sharing it for nearly and hour, you know the bar isn't making money. 
(And yes, that actually happened at a bar while I was sitting there talking to the owner. In a go-go bar he owned, I watched a guy sit for 2 hours trying to get girls to sit on his lap so he could grope their boobs and @ss and when the girls stopped coming over to him, he finally left, with half his original drink still sitting on the table. I checked my "bin" just to see where I was at and was nearly at 2,000 baht in the same time period.)

The government was crowing about how much the Chinese and Indians were spending but it was BS. They aren't spending anywhere near as much as the Westerners used to. You don't hear people referring to the Indians and Chinese as "1 week millionaires", unlike how they used to refer to the Western tourists as "2 week millionaires". 
(Western tourists tend to have longer holidays and spend like they won the lottery on them, even though the reality is they may have been saving for years for that one trip.)

Some of you may remember the kerfuffle over the "zero dollar" tour groups coming from China. A lot of them. The tourists paid for "all inclusive" deals back home, the tour groups made cut-rate deals with various hotels/restaurants/attractions and when the tourists arrived here, they wouldn't spend a single baht on anything. 
It was news on a national level for awhile. The numbers of Chinese arriving made the TAT numbers look good, but despite how many there were, they weren't giving the economy anywhere near the boost that was expected.

Many business owners had to start cutting back, long before covid. One motorcycle club I knew in 2008 had about 30 members, all business owners. 10 years later I think only 3 still had Harleys as the "luxury" items are the first to go when things get tight and you need money. 
One guy back then had 3 go-gos and 4 beer bars. He had to dump most of them and the 1 beer bar and 1 go-go he still has are closed (no business). He thinks it could be a couple years before they could open again.
A number of the other business owners also ended up closing their businesses and moving on. Meanwhile, Walking Street was crammed with people. People who were just walking. Not spending.
(Like the crowds that roam through the Red Light District in Amsterdam, gawking at all the women in the windows but never actually "sampling" any of them.)

Yes, there are a lot of Chinese, Indians and Arabs in the "high end" shops in Bangkok, and yes, they might spend like they've just emptied the treasury, but their numbers are a scant fraction of the overall total of those groups. Most of the arrivals seem to be of the "we spent everything we had just getting here and have almost no money to spend on anything now that we are here" type.

Various gov'ts have been, for years, trying to remodel Pattaya as a "family" resort but even then, they are thinking about "foreign" families, not domestic ones. 

Unless Pattaya starts hosting more "events" that will attract more than just the usual weekend crowds, business here (small and large) will continue to feel the pinch. 

But what can they do ? They don't have the sports facilities to do much more than a regional volleyball or ping pong tournament. They've been doing golf for decades but I've yet to meet a Thai that golfs (yes, there are Thai golfers. I know. However, in all the years I've been coming and living here I've yet to meet one.) Even hosting a few more golf tournaments each year won't add much to the bottom line.

They do a small sailing regatta once a year. Doesn't attract much of a crowd. 
The Burapa Bike Week draws huge crowds from around SE Asia, but that's once a year and only 3-4 days (and I think most people wouldn't want any more than that any ways). 

There simply isn't a lot in Pattaya to make it a preferred destination for Thai tourists.

Quite frankly, they need to be hosting a major event every 2-3 weeks really, if they want to boost the local economy. At least until this covid business is over and they can get back to catering to foreign tourists again.

Which may take a couple years the way things are going. If we're still around in a couple years that is, the way things are going.
 

 

Much of this post is repetition of myth, simply wrong, resting on false assumptions, and unable to relinquish the comforting beliefs that “only farang have money” (those big spending Golden Egg Layers staying in flophouses off Soi Buakhao) and “Thais are stupid”—so helpful for maintaining the sense of superiority among our bigoted posters.

None of the big projects was financed back when Pattaya was “roaring.” That would be in the 90s and early 2000s. TAT: TVF pronounced Pattaya dead starting around 2007. TAT had already stopped targeting Westerners.

 

“Big” projects are developed by “big” companies. And CP isn’t stupid, actually. Nor is Erawan—to mention two. The Thai analysts there are in fact a lot smarter than any TVF "analyst" I’ve encountered here. A TVF Economic Prediction has always been an excellent reverse indicator. In fact, a rise in the CP share price usually correlates well with the appearance of a TVF doom thread.???? Draw the chart, man. 

 

Now CP never thought that the 8 billion baht Central Festival + Hilton would make money from the crop of Western tourists you think were being targeted. The probable success of that targeting was perfectly known.

 

Now one of our most distinguished and prolific TVF Economists—before he ran out of money and had to leave Thailand--declared with usual prescience after the opening of Central Festival in 2009:

 

Central World is going to fail, just like The Avenues. Anyone stupid enough to build a place that charges Bangkok prices in a small tourist resort town deserves to go bankrupt.

 

Ironically this had a germ of truth. The current crop of tourists would not buy in Central Festival. The chorus of sneers from our peanut gallery, who only look in rose-tinted rear view mirrors, was deafening.

 

But of course CP knew this perfectly well and wasn’t targeting the baked-beans-on-toast crowd at all. They were targeting the domestic market and what they knew would be the coming new wave of tourists of a much different demographic. How did they know that? Oooh.

 

A lot of major projects followed, e. g., Holiday Inn and latterly T21. Domestic and international tourism made them successful. The Avenue illustrates what "no customers" really means. And the smart money knows that the trend will continue.

Top Thailand real estate firm says many investors interested in buying hotels in Pattaya post-Covid

 

WOT??? (Sounds of sputters over keyboards, knickers soiling.) COVID has been an interruption, obviously. But this too shall pass.

 

So this is our problem: the big companies developing the bigger projects somehow all manage to sit on the higher barstools than our TVF Economists. Somehow, unfathomably, they manage to see them lights on at night and them shopping bags.

 

I'm sure the developers wouldn't have started a number of those projects if they'd known that TAT was going to prioritize hordes of low budget tourists instead of the crowds of higher spending tourists from other regions.

 

Oh, but they would have. You really think these incredibly wealthy developers don’t work with TAT before they put down 8 billion baht? Absurd. That's how they knew. CP even agreed in advance to pay for an upgrade to the electric grid. Your failure, shared with so many, is that you’re only able to see the low spending tourists and refuse to see the middle class tourists from the same regions as the low spending who more than offset any loss from the old monger spend.

 

Now this was true before, actually. From the UK came a horde of baked-beans-on-toast tourists staying in the flophouses. But then there were some as well who stayed at the Dusit. Same thing now, but we just hate to admit it, you see. Go into the lobbies of the Hilton and Holiday Inn during normal tourist season and see who’s staying there. I have. I've read what the CP financial report said, too. I encouraged one of our experts to do the same, but he refuses. See no evil!????

 

Hence, it isn’t BS at all.

 

Zero baht tourists were banned in 2016, BTW, and the ban has been enforced. There are no plans to permit them again. TVF Posters constantly lie about that or deny it, however, to keep the myth alive. Moreover, now about 60% of Chinese tourism comes from the FITs. This is always ignored as well. Some of those Chinese honeys look awfully nice, too. Now you know our posters must be really blind and in desperate denial if they can’t see those.  Reminds me of how you were unable to see any pretty girls at the Bikini Run! Really.   

 

Little anecdotes and stereotypical, generalized conclusions from them don’t prove anything.

The newer demographic don’t spend in beer bars, true. Known fact. Those are no longer such an important basis of the Pattaya economy, however.

 

If you cater only to a narrow, specialized market, then your risks will always be greater. Such is, and always has been, the market targeted at farang tourists exclusively. Nobody guaranteed that market would be good at all times and forever. It doesn't need to be.

 

Some Asian tourists do spend in go-go bars. A friend of mine complains that Chinese, and Japanese, have driven up prices. WOT? But many do spend quite a lot in the restos, malls, shops, hotels, real estate, and services that appeal to them. This has a great knock on effect. Our Economists recognize this effect, but of course only in relation to beer bars. We seem to have great expertise only in the beer bar economics. But the present lack of the newer demographic does account for so many of the closings around town. It’s hardly the loss of mongers that can account for such widespread devastation. Never anything like this when Pattaya was annually pronounced Dead, Dead, Dead for lack of them before.

 

Unless Pattaya starts hosting more "events" that will attract more than just the usual weekend crowds, business here (small and large) will continue to feel the pinch. There simply isn't a lot in Pattaya to make it a preferred destination for Thai tourists.

 

TAT: TVF doesn’t recognize domestic tourism at all, because to do so would be to concede that some Thais, at least, have money and spend it. That idea is SO discomfiting. Now it is of course recognized in the UK. Our Brits instantly recognize that Brighton benefits greatly from domestic tourism, even daytrippers from London, and Londoners shop in the same shops they have in London. Should domestic tourism decrease in Brighton, the yearly municipal financial report will squawk about it. In Thailand, though, we just absolutely can't understand how that can possibly be. It's IMPOSSIBLE! Bigotry.

 

When confronted with some devastating reality that Thais do have good money to spend, as in the nightmarish

 

Pattaya is smiling again! Top end hotels at 90% capacity for long holiday weekend

 

then that will need to explained away with nonsense such as “government subsidy” (actually the subsidy hadn’t yet started), they aren't "top end" (pecked out from a fan room), or a whataboutism sneer about non-holidays to denigrate its significance. Thais do find it significant, however.

 

But the main argument will be a straw man fallacy that TAT or The Authorities or somebody claimed that domestic tourism will completely make up for the loss of international. Therefore we can all dismiss any gains from domestic tourism with a final, conclusive sneer. And such is the implication behind your final word. Nobody ever said such a thing; nobody ever implied such a thing. That is, without international tourism, Pattaya businesses dependent on it will always feel the pinch. Everyone knows it. Nor can things be any other way. 

 

The Thai gov't is doing what it can to promote domestic tourism everywhere, including in Pattaya, and they know far better what will appeal to Thais, and what's doable, than our experts here. Seems a plan comes out daily for reviving international tourism. Nobody said that will happen overnight, either.

 

Edited November 11, 2020 by BigStar

[Redvic]

11 hours ago, newnative said:

Nonsense.

Realy???? I have been traveling to Thailand for 20 years ( what have u been doing) 3 times a year for the past 6 years. So i know what i am seeing and have friends that live there and they all say the same buisness is dying takings down year upon year. So before you talk through your a**e check your facts

[olfu]

Sure Pattaya is in decline if government dont let me in.

I guess all world is in decline.

Venice in decline for 800 years already.

And, sorry to mention it, I am in decline too and nobody care.

[newnative]

56 minutes ago, Redvic said:

Realy???? I have been traveling to Thailand for 20 years ( what have u been doing) 3 times a year for the past 6 years. So i know what i am seeing and have friends that live there and they all say the same buisness is dying takings down year upon year. So before you talk through your a**e check your facts

      I live in Pattaya year-round--I don't just visit now and then.  That's what I've 'been doing'.  I try to keep up with new projects here.  My partner and I were probably about the first visitors to the new Arom condo showroom in Wong Amat in early Spring.  It wasn't actually fully open yet--they were still putting the finishing touches on--but the sales lady let us in and gave us a tour of the show units.   Should be a beautiful project.  Heard of it?  

     In the 10 years I have been living here I've watched Pattaya grow tremendously.  You, and others, haven't offered anything other than some vague references to talking to this person or that person and they all say business is dying 'year upon year', going down 'in the past 5-6 years', etc., etc. , etc.    Meanwhile, nobody can answer why all those retailers expanded or remodeled, why all those new hotels were needed, why all those new car brands came to a dying town, why all the new housing was constructed, why a new hospital was needed, or a Terminal 21 could now be supported.  

     Instead of vague nothings, I give concrete example after concrete example of new businesses that have come to Pattaya.  Instead of 'so and so said...', you can actually go to Central Festival and look across the street at one of the examples I gave--yet another big new project being built.  It's not random hearsay--it's right there to see.   Or, look at all the other projects I mentioned being built in the past 5 to 6 years when everything was suppose to be going downhill--and I just scratched the surface with what I highlighted.

     There's no doubt that some businesses have had to close with Pattaya's changing tourist demographics and it's likely that those are the ones your friends, and you, are focused on.  "Poor Joe had to close his bar--just not the same number of customers he used to get 5 or 6 years ago.  Pattaya is really going downhill."   But, as I said in the earlier post, you can't focus solely on what is closing to get an accurate picture; you have to keep an eye on what is opening in its place, as well.