Anything missing in your life?

[thaibeachlovers]

5 minutes ago, Leaver said:

 

If you take a look at most of Thailand's tourist destinations, you will see a common theme. 

 

It's all about getting the tourist's money in, whilst spending no money on what attracts them in the first place.

 

For how long do they think they can fool the tourists?  

Depends on which tourists you are talking about. Phayao is a tourist town for THAIs and it's a very nice place indeed. They do spend money on the infrastructure- it has a lakeside promenade that puts Pattaya's abomination to shame.

 

BTW. I went to the beach for the UNSPOILED nature- ie they didn't need to spend any money on it. By building concrete flashpacker hotels all over the place they ruined the reason why people started going in the first place, which is why they have to have swimming pools.

[Tagged]

Most places shows that from a paradise to worse to better it takes time, but in most places that get popular, there will be changes to the better. Maybe not 300 baht beach views anymore, but still they will preserve the places for the better, even though 10 times or 100 times the normal population will occure. 

[Leaver]

5 minutes ago, Surelynot said:

Forever.....tourists (two week tourists) don't 'see'  these problems......... 

 

Really?

 

Just posted a link showing tourism up 32% in Vietnam pre covid.

 

I know the 2019/20 high season in Pattaya was one of the quietest I had ever seen for westerners.  

[thaibeachlovers]

2 minutes ago, Leaver said:

 

As said to BMT, I am not posing the question, or scenario, to yourself personally.  It's about the tourists. 

 

For example, what are they to think when they walk up o a taxi on the road and say, "Do you know ABC location?"  the driver says, 'Yes."  So they get in.  The driver then says, "500 baht" and refuses to use the meter.

 

It's been going on for decades, and during the 2020 high season, just prior to covid, you could really see the lack of western tourists in Pattaya.   

 

Could all their BS here have finally pushed the market past what it's prepared to pay?  

 

Here's Vietnam's tourists stats just prior to covid.  Up 32% over the previous year.  

 

  https://vietnamtourism.gov.vn/english/index.php/statistic/international?csrf_test_name=8e73140777ccc5dfda26360c198c60ec&txtkey=&year=2020&period=t1

I'm not justifying bad behaviour, but I never travelled expecting things to be easy, which was part of the experience.

While LOS may have it's problems, my experience of Sri Lanka was so horrible that I never went back, so it can always be worse somewhere else. Likewise with Penang, though many people like the place. Thailand never reached the lows I experienced in those two places.

Edited April 11, 2021 by thaibeachlovers

[Leaver]

4 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

By building concrete flashpacker hotels all over the place they ruined the reason why people started going in the first place, which is why they have to have swimming pools.

 

Exactly.  

 

So tourists start to go to other destinations (countries) where they can actually swim in clean water, on a nice beach.   

[thaibeachlovers]

ce

4 minutes ago, Tagged said:

Most places shows that from a paradise to worse to better it takes time, but in most places that get popular, there will be changes to the better. Maybe not 300 baht beach views anymore, but still they will preserve the places for the better, even though 10 times or 100 times the normal population will occure. 

The point I was making is that they DESTROYED the nice beaches. Short of putting the bulldozer through all the flashpacker hotels it's never going to get better, IMO.

[thaibeachlovers]

1 minute ago, Leaver said:

 

Exactly.  

 

So tourists start to go to other destinations (countries) where they can actually swim in clean water, on a nice beach.   

Are you sure about that? There is no equivalent in NZ as only camping allowed beside the sand ( if all the camp grounds haven't been sold for timeshares ) and rented accommodation is waaaaaay too expensive. I believe Australia is the same. Penang beaches are awful, the Maldives etc are too expensive.

Burma would be excellent for beaches on the Andaman coast, but it's politically a no go zone.

 

Soooo, where would you go for a reasonably priced hut with ensuite that has a decent beach and clean water?

[simon43]

44 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Are you sure about that? There is no equivalent in NZ as only camping allowed beside the sand ( if all the camp grounds haven't been sold for timeshares ) and rented accommodation is waaaaaay too expensive. I believe Australia is the same. Penang beaches are awful, the Maldives etc are too expensive.

Burma would be excellent for beaches on the Andaman coast, but it's politically a no go zone.

 

Soooo, where would you go for a reasonably priced hut with ensuite that has a decent beach and clean water?

Here's a nice beach in Rakhine State, Myanmar that I had all to my self a couple of years ago (mind you, it took 2 long days of hard riding on an off-road motorbike to get there!).

 

[Leaver]

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Are you sure about that? There is no equivalent in NZ as only camping allowed beside the sand ( if all the camp grounds haven't been sold for timeshares ) and rented accommodation is waaaaaay too expensive. I believe Australia is the same. Penang beaches are awful, the Maldives etc are too expensive.

Burma would be excellent for beaches on the Andaman coast, but it's politically a no go zone.

 

Soooo, where would you go for a reasonably priced hut with ensuite that has a decent beach and clean water?

 

The question isn't so much where would I go, the question is where will the tourists go?  

 

There's no point selling "a reasonably priced hut with ensuite that has a decent beach and clean water" if it's 180 baht a beer inside the resort, for example. 

 

Sure, the hut was reasonably priced, but you get scr*wed on everything inside the resort, and then even worse outside the resort when you step into the corrupt 3rd World of Thailand.

 

It seems like long ago,  but the 2019/20 high season was no high season at all, and it was pre covid.  

 

If we were to reverse engineer it, and rather than look at what Thailand is doing wrong, or not doing at all, and focus on what Thailand is doing right, pre covid, what could we truly talk about?  

 

Thailand's biggest demographic was cheap Chinese package holiday makers.  Is that progress, or regress?  

 

 

[Leaver]

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I'm not justifying bad behaviour, but I never travelled expecting things to be easy, which was part of the experience.

While LOS may have it's problems, my experience of Sri Lanka was so horrible that I never went back, so it can always be worse somewhere else. Likewise with Penang, though many people like the place. Thailand never reached the lows I experienced in those two places.

 

Could it be the "bad behaviour" got to a point where tourists did not return, as you did with Sri Lanka? 

 

People pick up a glossy brochure in their home country of a nice holiday in Thailand.  Should they expect a Sri Lanka experience from Thailand?  For sure they will be paying more than a holiday to Sri Lanka to come to Thailand.  

 

The TAT has long been touting they want high end tourists to come to Thailand.  What high end experience are they offering them outside of a protected resort?  

[Leaver]

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

The Chinese tourists will keep coming so why would the Thais care?

 

The beach experience was a million times better in the 90s when there were way less tourists, so less now would be a good thing IMO.

 

Is that the Chinese tourists who fly with a Chinese airline, met at the airport with a coach bus owned by a Chinese company with Thai nominees, staying in a Chinese owned hotel, and taken to Chinese owned restaurants and souvenir shops?  

 

It all equals about "zero baht" doesn't it?  

 

Not a great future in that tourist market.  

[thaibeachlovers]

7 hours ago, Leaver said:

 

Could it be the "bad behaviour" got to a point where tourists did not return, as you did with Sri Lanka? 

 

People pick up a glossy brochure in their home country of a nice holiday in Thailand.  Should they expect a Sri Lanka experience from Thailand?  For sure they will be paying more than a holiday to Sri Lanka to come to Thailand.  

 

The TAT has long been touting they want high end tourists to come to Thailand.  What high end experience are they offering them outside of a protected resort?  

IMO the TAT is dreaming if they think they can turn LOS into something it can't be, for many reasons ie can't turn a pig's ear into a silk purse.

The really posh places like the expensive resort on Railay operate outside the norm of Thailand, and even have their own launch to bring guests from Krabi to the resort- no grotty long tails for them. There are a few such, but most tourist's experience involves more close contact with the locals. Samui tries to make the entire island an upmarket experience with the private airport and lots of horrid concrete all over the place, but it turned me off long ago with it's pretensions to upmarket accommodation- the prices certainly put off any on a budget. It was far more enjoyable before the concrete trucks moved in.

 

Leaving aside the silly wish list, they need to decide which demographic they actually want to cater to and go all out to make that happen. I'd like to see easier immigration to allow longer visits, and a focus on low end tourism, but that's just me. I'm pretty sure the people in charge have baht in their eyes, no matter how unlikely they are to actually succeed going up market overall.

 

Could it be the "bad behaviour" got to a point where tourists did not return

I doubt that. The scammers in Sri Lanka made Thai scammers look pitiful by comparison. I was told not to leave the hotel at night as I might get murdered, which does not encourage a return visit. As for night life- none at all, zero, nada, and that was in the special "tourist zone". After dark there was literally nothing to do except go to bed.

I rarely experienced "bad" behaviour in LOS. Most problems were due to a lack of effort to do things properly, rather than an intent to do me wrong.

[thaibeachlovers]

7 hours ago, Leaver said:

The TAT has long been touting they want high end tourists to come to Thailand.  What high end experience are they offering them outside of a protected resort?  

Quite a few actually. The Temple of Truth, Nong Nooch, and that place with the big Buddha on a rock are just 3 up market places I know in Pattaya. There are more.

 

The White Temple in Chiang Rai can't be bettered, and more than a few great places off the beaten track in the north. Track of the Tiger offered excellent tours, and is still going.

 

The problem is that between the great places there is a lot of grot.

[Sticky Rice Balls]

13 hours ago, Leaver said:

Now Thailand is not so cheap, that just leaves the nasty, so where is all the money going?  

Sick buffalo?

[Leaver]

14 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

IMO the TAT is dreaming if they think they can turn LOS into something it can't be, for many reasons ie can't turn a pig's ear into a silk purse.

The really posh places like the expensive resort on Railay operate outside the norm of Thailand, and even have their own launch to bring guests from Krabi to the resort- no grotty long tails for them. There are a few such, but most tourist's experience involves more close contact with the locals. Samui tries to make the entire island an upmarket experience with the private airport and lots of horrid concrete all over the place, but it turned me off long ago with it's pretensions to upmarket accommodation- the prices certainly put off any on a budget. It was far more enjoyable before the concrete trucks moved in.

 

Leaving aside the silly wish list, they need to decide which demographic they actually want to cater to and go all out to make that happen. I'd like to see easier immigration to allow longer visits, and a focus on low end tourism, but that's just me. I'm pretty sure the people in charge have baht in their eyes, no matter how unlikely they are to actually succeed going up market overall.

 

Could it be the "bad behaviour" got to a point where tourists did not return

I doubt that. The scammers in Sri Lanka made Thai scammers look pitiful by comparison. I was told not to leave the hotel at night as I might get murdered, which does not encourage a return visit. As for night life- none at all, zero, nada, and that was in the special "tourist zone". After dark there was literally nothing to do except go to bed.

I rarely experienced "bad" behaviour in LOS. Most problems were due to a lack of effort to do things properly, rather than an intent to do me wrong.

 

Good post.  

 

Totally agree TAT are trying to spin Thailand into something it's not.  

 

Being in Pattaya, where the sex trade is the biggest tourist attraction, here was TAT getting Russian families and Chinese package holiday makers.  I'm sure their holiday was a cheap package, but I doubt they will be back, and perhaps tell their friends back home not to bother also.  

 

For some decades, there as been no preservation of the very thing that attracted tourists to Thailand, the nature, namely the beaches.  The Thai's have just exploited the nature to the point it's become unattractive, and in some cases, a lost cause.   

 

Once you have lost a segment of the market (western tourists) it's difficult to lure them back.  

 

[Leaver]

14 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Quite a few actually. The Temple of Truth, Nong Nooch, and that place with the big Buddha on a rock are just 3 up market places I know in Pattaya. There are more.

 

The White Temple in Chiang Rai can't be bettered, and more than a few great places off the beaten track in the north. Track of the Tiger offered excellent tours, and is still going.

 

The problem is that between the great places there is a lot of grot.

 

Yes, I will stand corrected, there are some decent standard attractions here, but as you say, outside of the resort and the attraction, awaits a ghetto for the tourists.  

[Natai Beach]

39 minutes ago, Leaver said:

 

Yes, I will stand corrected, there are some decent standard attractions here, but as you say, outside of the resort and the attraction, awaits a ghetto for the tourists.  

Correct in Pattaya. As you said, it is a city based on sex workers. Who are sex workers because they are mostly uneducated, on drugs, lack morals etc. = ghetto
And the tourist demographic isn’t “up market”. It has been described as a farang ghetto before.
And the beach is unswimmable.
And Pattaya is in the EEC, totally surrounded by heavy industry, factories to the north (Amata Nakhon) Chonburi city, the south Maptaphut (Rayong)  and the East (Amata City) and all the pollution that those areas spew out 24/7/365.

 

But there are thousands of other nice places in Thailand better than Pattaya apart for the pay for love which is Pattaya’s forte and is a world leader in. 

 

The beach near my house. Photos I took last week. The water is clean. The air is clean. Tropical paradise. The tourists love it down here. 
 

 

 

Edited April 12, 2021 by Natai Beach

[Leaver]

20 hours ago, Natai Beach said:

Correct in Pattaya. As you said, it is a city based on sex workers. Who are sex workers because they are mostly uneducated, on drugs, lack morals etc. = ghetto
And the tourist demographic isn’t “up market”. It has been described as a farang ghetto before.
And the beach is unswimmable.
And Pattaya is in the EEC, totally surrounded by heavy industry, factories to the north (Amata Nakhon) Chonburi city, the south Maptaphut (Rayong)  and the East (Amata City) and all the pollution that those areas spew out 24/7/365.

 

But there are thousands of other nice places in Thailand better than Pattaya apart for the pay for love which is Pattaya’s forte and is a world leader in. 

 

The beach near my house. Photos I took last week. The water is clean. The air is clean. Tropical paradise. The tourists love it down here. 
 

 

 

 

No argument from me there are some gems still available in Thailand, but they have trashed their main tourist destinations.  

[BritManToo]

On 4/11/2021 at 8:14 PM, thaibeachlovers said:

Are you sure about that? There is no equivalent in NZ as only camping allowed beside the sand ( if all the camp grounds haven't been sold for timeshares ) and rented accommodation is waaaaaay too expensive. I believe Australia is the same. Penang beaches are awful, the Maldives etc are too expensive.

Burma would be excellent for beaches on the Andaman coast, but it's politically a no go zone.

 

Soooo, where would you go for a reasonably priced hut with ensuite that has a decent beach and clean water?

I'm OK with a swimming pool, as long as there are beer and hookers within easy reach.

so Pattaya is just fine for me.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 4/13/2021 at 2:50 AM, Natai Beach said:

Correct in Pattaya. As you said, it is a city based on sex workers. Who are sex workers because they are mostly uneducated, on drugs, lack morals etc. = ghetto
And the tourist demographic isn’t “up market”. It has been described as a farang ghetto before.
And the beach is unswimmable.
And Pattaya is in the EEC, totally surrounded by heavy industry, factories to the north (Amata Nakhon) Chonburi city, the south Maptaphut (Rayong)  and the East (Amata City) and all the pollution that those areas spew out 24/7/365.

 

But there are thousands of other nice places in Thailand better than Pattaya apart for the pay for love which is Pattaya’s forte and is a world leader in. 

 

The beach near my house. Photos I took last week. The water is clean. The air is clean. Tropical paradise. The tourists love it down here. 
 

 

 

That looks like the Gulf coast. I stayed at Sanawan B & B for a month- it was bliss. An entire beach almost to myself and GF.

The best beaches are those unknown as they haven't been destroyed yet.

[Tagged]

On 4/11/2021 at 8:06 PM, thaibeachlovers said:

ce

The point I was making is that they DESTROYED the nice beaches. Short of putting the bulldozer through all the flashpacker hotels it's never going to get better, IMO.

Times changing every popular place, since money is the drive, and when they finely finding themselves at the point it is destryed, they have to rethink and rebuild again. But, one thing for sure, nothing will ever be like it was before. 

 

The little bungalow at the beach with no electric to 150,- baht, and the water just a few meter outside had sharks, sea snakes, turtles and fish with all the different shapes and colours, the electric noise underwater from healthy corals, will we never see again. For sure. Not in our time at this planet. But there will be nice bungalows, hopefully better water quality and also some underwater life will finely come back sooner or later. One day

[thaibeachlovers]

9 hours ago, Tagged said:

But there will be nice bungalows, hopefully better water quality and also some underwater life will finely come back sooner or later. One day

Too late for me though. I was lucky to enjoy the Thai beaches before they were ruined by concrete.