Video: For Sale - Pattaya's once famed nightlife

[Virt]

7 hours ago, Gottfrid said:

It´s the buyers market! Nice to here. Time to get up with the money bags.

I hope you like Tsingtao.

[Gottfrid]

30 minutes ago, Virt said:

I hope you like Tsingtao.

Nah, I was actually planning to go there and look at the opportunities. As we all know it will come back. Entirely too many mouth fed thanks to the industry and also all the bribes, protection and corruption.

[Benmart]

3 hours ago, hotchilli said:

It was depressing before Covid.

Living here these past years, I'm not depressed before or after. Not my circus, not my sideshow. I support small, local businesses and tip good service generously.  Lip service and keyboard laments doesn't pay the rent.

[Ralf001]

2 hours ago, Golden Triangle said:

Where do you live, the dark side of the moon ? The city is trashed at the moment.

Yeah Darkside, its busy as over here.

[Deli]

The clowns who run the show goy what they wanted

[ExpatOilWorker]

 

[Virt]

1 hour ago, Gottfrid said:

Nah, I was actually planning to go there and look at the opportunities. As we all know it will come back. Entirely too many mouth fed thanks to the industry and also all the bribes, protection and corruption.

Yeah plenty of opportunities for the ones willing to take the risk. Tons of options too on Samui, but no way of telling when things are back to normal, so need a fat bank account meanwhile.

[Iforbach]

Seen all changes over 20 years wat ever happens people will still come ..yes not as many  .but everything evolves and as long as I can get few beers ..nice food @ living in my condo ..I'm good ..mind u I am old  .how ever there will always b go go bars . Maybe pushed back more inland ..I was in bkk other day busy as ...

[redwood1]

In my honest opinion....

 

Sure they may let the nightlife open before another shutdown, But I think ultimately they want the nightlife dead, at least the farang oriented nightlife dead....

 

And if the visa roadmap from the last 10 years is where things are headed in the future, I would say expat farangs just might be visa tightened out of Thailand in the coming years, and I am not talking about just a few but the majority.....

 

I hate to sound negative but that's just the way I see it based on all the current evidence and events...

 

I would never in 1 million years buy a condo here now....

Edited November 12, 2021 by redwood1

[Ralf001]

12 hours ago, grego49 said:

And the buffalo bar,5555

I dont recall ever going to the Buffalo Bar, where is/was that ?

[jacko45k]

11 hours ago, Virt said:

I hope you like Tsingtao.

Yes, something going on. I live in a group of larger houses and some have been on the market for many years unsold. Suddenly we seem to be having a flurry of activity, Chinese buyers. 

[mikebell]

I feel for the local police; after strangling businesses for years, their income has now been reduced to a trickle.

[Gsxrnz]

20 hours ago, xylophone said:

This video confirms what I heard from a couple of youngish guys I met last week in a rock band bar in Patong, as they had come from Pattaya to experience the nightlife here, as they said that Pattaya was dead!

Not only is it dead, the funeral was last week. 

 

 

[Golden Triangle]

22 hours ago, Bangkok Barry said:

Several videos on line showing hundreds queuing for food handouts, mostly arranged by foreigners as the government has done next to nothing to help. And today I watched a video in which an enormous area of beer bars was being torn down. An area large enough to build a massive hotel or shopping mall. Many people came for such areas and spent money on hotels and food. No longer.

Can you post a link for that video please, I for one would like to see it, thanks ????????

[Bangkok Barry]

32 minutes ago, Golden Triangle said:

22 hours ago, Bangkok Barry said:

Several videos on line showing hundreds queuing for food handouts, mostly arranged by foreigners as the government has done next to nothing to help. And today I watched a video in which an enormous area of beer bars was being torn down. An area large enough to build a massive hotel or shopping mall. Many people came for such areas and spent money on hotels and food. No longer.

Can you post a link for that video please, I for one would like to see it, thanks ????????

From about 4 minutes in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5qQLYk1uWM

Other videos can be found by searching YouTube under Pattaya poverty or Pattaya crisis.

 

 

 

[PranBuriThai]

On 11/12/2021 at 7:51 AM, NVass said:

From talking to various bar owners. This isn't going to kill the nightlife scene. Not all, but many larger places have let the staff go ( and the premises if they are forced to pay rent) and they are sitting on there money to reopen once they are allowed. I am 100% sure it will spring back quickly once it can (Even though it might change somewhat).

The only people this is truly hurting are the little people, mostly staff and small bar owners.

The main problem I see is the image of Thailand portrayed to the rest of the world by crippling the night life industry, leaves Thailand as a "me too" destination. There are lot's of beaches and temples and amazing food all over Asia. What differentiated Thailand from the rest was its fantastic Night Life (Not just Go Go Bars) and without this Thailand becomes just another voice in the crowd. They really don't get what made Thailand special and I think they will live to regret it!

 

You must know different bar owners than i do.

I suggest you watch Nick Dean's last YouTube video.

I thought the guy was going to breakdown on camera.

Bryan Flowers owns 26 bars and looks like a train wreck.

No doubt all an act by the "little" guys who could be seeing their livelihoods going down the pan.

Retox was a well run and popular sports bar, yet the owners tried to get out months ago. Reduced the selling price a few weeks ago but no takers. Say's it all about what people think of the future of Pattaya when a business of this quality can't even get a buyer.

Of course, if you mean the money launders around Pattaya "disposing" of money, then i guess they don't care.

Even that trade will come to an end when they find a better return elsewhere.

 

[Leaver]

On 11/12/2021 at 2:51 PM, NVass said:

Not all, but many larger places have let the staff go ( and the premises if they are forced to pay rent) and they are sitting on there money to reopen once they are allowed.

 

So, you buy a 3 year lease, say, in 2019, and pay the key money up front, and if it's a "large place" that could be millions of baht, then covid hits, and these owners are just "sitting on their money" waiting to reopen when they are allowed. 

 

Did they just walk away from those few million baht investments, handling the keys back, but no problem, they can buy again?  

 

How will they get back the money lost on the covid lock down?  Will they charge 500 baht a beer? 

 

On 11/12/2021 at 2:51 PM, NVass said:

I am 100% sure it will spring back quickly once it can

 

Who is going to fill all those empty buildings with For Sale and For Rent signs on them, and "quickly?"

 

On 11/12/2021 at 2:51 PM, NVass said:

The only people this is truly hurting are the little people, mostly staff and small bar owners.

 

Wrong? 

 

Even shareholders of Thaibev would feel the loss.  Sure, you could argue only "big people" have shares in Thailand, but a loss is a loss.

 

On 11/12/2021 at 2:51 PM, NVass said:

What differentiated Thailand from the rest was its fantastic Night Life (Not just Go Go Bars) and without this Thailand becomes just another voice in the crowd. They really don't get what made Thailand special and I think they will live to regret it!

 

No need to sugar coat it under the guise of "nightlife." 

 

The sex trade put Thailand on the map, and continued to be a huge earner for Thailand, right up until covid.  I am sure it will continue to do so, but it will take a few years to bounce back.  

[Leaver]

1 hour ago, PranBuriThai said:

No doubt all an act by the "little" guys who could be seeing their livelihoods going down the pan.

 

Not just their livelihoods, but their life savings.  

[spidermike007]

It feels like willful sabotage. You cannot kill tourism more effectively, if you were doing it deliberately. Therefore, the verdict is in. They are trying to reduce the industry to ashes, and rebuild it in their own image. That of saints, sages and holy Buddhists. Put all the bars, nightclubs, go-go's, and related businesses out of business entirely. Then rebuild the industry as a Disneyworld, family type attraction. Pure as winter snow. 

 

Of course we all know this will be a dismal failure. I expect no more than a million tourists in 2022, and 4-5 million tourists a year, 5-10 years from now, and for that trend of diminishing arrivals to continue, for the next 50 years. News bulletin! They killed the golden goose. 

It is time to admit that the tourism industry has been sabotaged to the point where it will never recover, to any meaningful extent. Ever. Decades from now it will be limping along, and thousands of large hotels will either be closed, or they will attempt to convert them into low priced condos. Eventually many will be razed to the ground.

 

Trillions of dollars in tourism infrastructure down the toilet. Prayuth, and the untalented Phiphat will go down in history as the men who destroyed the Thai economy, and set the nation on a scorched earth path toward a position of 80th in the world, in GDP, and a dramatic decline of the standard of living, for all but him, his cronies, and the very rich. 

[Zikomat]

 Pattaya is way too attractive for the newborn and ever increasing Thai middle class from Bangkok, a huge megapolis. Before Covid, the weekend and holiday influx of Bangkokers, together with the Chinese tour buses, made Pattaya traffic system seriously overloaded. And this tendency was on the rise from year to year.  Bangkokers got more and more interest in Pattaya.

 Looks like this is the time for the Thais to claim Pattaya back for themselves, although it was initially created and built for the foreigners and with their money. The Thai people got richer in the recent decade and they need more space for fun and leisure. Pattaya is the best candidate, situated just 90 minutes away from the capital. The Pattaya’s nightlife was never something of interest for the Bangkok visitors. Moreover, it was a source of the shame feelings and an embarrassment for this kind of public (quite hypocritical, as everything Thai). Probably, the current crisis is being used as the opportunity to transform the sex capital of the world into a slightly less boring version of Hua Hin with the main target groups of visitors being Thai middle class families and notorious organized hordes from China.

The most recent decision not to reopen Pattaya’s nightlife venues (while reopening it in Bangkok and Phuket) clearly hints on the governments intentions of transforming Pattaya into something new and different. The 50 year old history of Pattaya as we knew it has come to an end.

 Anybody thinking of current crisis in Pattaya as an opportunity for investing in the future nightlife’s recovery may easily lose all their investments with this global change of the city’s positioning.

 

 

[jacko45k]

12 hours ago, PranBuriThai said:

Retox was a well run and popular sports bar, yet the owners tried to get out months ago. Reduced the selling price a few weeks ago but no takers. Say's it all about what people think of the future of Pattaya when a business of this quality can't even get a buyer.

Any update on Hungry Hippo... that too was a successful business up for sale, price reduced? Have not been in there for a few months now.

[thai006]

this is the end of pattaya ...

 

covid make the wish come true from this government 

[rtco]

On 11/12/2021 at 2:08 PM, Ralf001 said:

Where in Patts are you seeing that ?

Almost everywhere

[Ralf001]

4 minutes ago, rtco said:

Almost everywhere

I must live in a different Pattaya.

[rtco]

1 minute ago, Ralf001 said:

I must live in a different Pattaya.

Try looking at all the other comments made against mine ... they all agree! They live in the same Pattaya. Maybe you should get out a bit more ????

[Ralf001]

3 minutes ago, rtco said:

Try looking at all the other comments made against mine ... they all agree! They live in the same Pattaya. Maybe you should get out a bit more ????

Spent a few hours this morning over on beach road, saw nada.

[PranBuriThai]

On 11/12/2021 at 6:47 AM, rtco said:

Is it!!! That's not from what I see with all the shuttered businesses (not just to bars, pubs & clubs) and the people on the streets with no income and nowhere to live. This is all part of the Governments end-game to kill the sleezy image of Pattaya and try and turn it into whoever knows what. I certainly don't. 

The "i'm alright jack' brigade haven't understood how this all works from the beginning of the pandemic.

First of all, it was great there was no tourists and they had all the girls and the place to themselves.

Then businesses started to close temporarily and girls left town to go home.

Then businesses closed permanently and girls got other jobs.

Then Soi Made In Thailand got bought and levelled, then all the other desolate beer bar complexes get bought and levelled.

Then the infrastructure starts falling apart. Then those expats that can go home, do go home.

The ones that have burned their bridges and are stuck in Thailand jump on internet forums and say it's business as usual.

 

 

[Rimmer]

A personal attack troll post has been removed, and now a post discussing moderation.

[ivor bigun]

The other day we were driving down beach road ,all of a sudden the wife shouted out ,"LOOK TWO TOURISTS' i was amazed as well first two falang tourists (you can always tell) that i had seen for so long .

to those who say that all the retirees will return home ,Why would they most of us here now are married with homes and familly ,if tourists dont return to be honest it means zilch to us .although i do feel so sorry for the workers 

Edited November 14, 2021 by ivor bigun

[Leaver]

2 hours ago, ivor bigun said:

to those who say that all the retirees will return home ,Why would they most of us here now are married with homes and familly ,

 

They don't have to return to their home country, but many may not be able to afford to continue to live here. 

 

Or, the Thai government may change the goal posts in the future, for which many retirees may no longer qualify to remain living here. 

 

 In such cases, it's of little consequence if you are married, and what you own here.