On July 31st, 2024, Mr. Sorathep Rojpotjanaruch, the Chairman of the Thai Restaurant Business Association, revealed that the restaurant industry has faced a significant drop in spending, exceeding 50% recently.

The association had appealed to the Thai Prime Minister to address the current economic issues with immediate stimulus measures instead of solely relying on the upcoming 10,000-baht digital wallet scheme.

 

More than half of the Thai restaurants in the association could close by year-end without prompt action, remarked Sorathep.

 

The combined impact of rising raw material costs and declining consumer spending has left small restaurants struggling. Medium-sized and SME establishments are also suffering due to increased tax burdens. The lack of government response to their initial appeal has left business owners feeling abandoned, questioning the effectiveness of the current administration, concerned Sorathep.

The association plans to follow up next week and escalate their concerns if no response is received.

 

By Kittisak Phalaharn

 

Full story: THE PATTAYA NEWS 2024-08-02

 

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There are too many restaurants and of course too less tourists although the Government pretends it is different

1 hour ago, webfact said:

More than half of the Thai restaurants in the association could close by year-end without prompt action, remarked Sorathep.

That does not mean the government must activate stimulus to failing businesses. Over exploitation is a disease in this country, and now they just have to pay the price for such stupid practice.

1 hour ago, webfact said:

the restaurant industry has faced a significant drop in spending

Only one solution................put up the prices to cover the "significant drop" in spending! 

But….we’re told record number of tourists. Doesn’t make sense .

6 hours ago, webfact said:

More than half of the Thai restaurants in the association could close by year-end without prompt action, remarked Sorathep.

Good. When they close then there will be more guests for the other restaurants.

It seems all the time new restaurants open and all the time some people think they can make a lot of money with them. Think again!

It's hard work and just doing the same as everybody else is not good enough.

There are lots of good restaurants out there which exist since many years and people go there again and again because the quality is good, the service is good, and the prices are not too high.

Many restaurants wouldn't fail if the owners or investors would think twice before they open them.

The digital wallet scheme will barely make a dent in the current Thai economy, they need to come up with creative and realistic ways to stimulate the economy. It has been greatly harmed by the Prayuth Decimation and nearly a decade of incompetent army rule, and now it's being run buy a house of goons who are completely devoid of talent, skill or vision. Pita would have figured out ways of helping the people. Not Srettha. And not the sold out PT. 

8 minutes ago, Mburo said:

Doesn’t make sense .

TiT! 

7 minutes ago, Mburo said:

But….we’re told record number of tourists. Doesn’t make sense .

The streets are in places, packed.....but with a few exceptions many bars and restaurants have few if any customers in them.

 

It is the Thai obsession of attracting Indians and Chinese ,who by and large do not want to or don't have the money to spend.....they need US and EU tourists.

5 minutes ago, Will B Good said:

The streets are in places, packed.....but with a few exceptions many bars and restaurants have few if any customers in them.

 

It is the Thai obsession of attracting Indians and Chinese ,who by and large do not want to or don't have the money to spend.....they need US and EU tourists.

 

 

MASS CHEAP TOURISM FROM INDIA AND CHINA is the problem. 

 

Strettha and his cronies celebrating niavely that they are set to reach 40million plus tourists, despite revenue from tourism being down, shows a clear lack of experience at the top level.

 

You flood the country with mass cheap tourists from China and India and you lose alot of European, American high spending tourists who won't come to a destination that is packed out. 

 

The sad facts are Thailand, anyone with some experience in Thai politics could have told you that many governements learn to late that they need to attract more quality tourists, and they promise this - but ultimately they end up leaving office, and a new set of leaders just redo the same mistakes. 

 

Stretha has been absolutely useLESS as PM.  His policies of opening up the borders to India and China for a free for all is going to destroy Thai tourism to high spending tourists. 

 

Indians especially, having an economy per gdp far lower than Thailand, are very low spenders in malls or restaurants. 

 

 

I don't understand, with all the Chinese, Indians, and Russians coming in for 60 days visa free, those restaurants should be packed.

Serves them right.

 

And it is going to get worse once RD steals 860k/year from me..

7 hours ago, webfact said:

The association had appealed to the Thai Prime Minister to address the current economic issues with immediate stimulus measures instead of solely relying on the upcoming 10,000-baht digital wallet scheme.

The 10k revolution is coming... hang on.

Srettha promised it would solve everything.

What happened to the restaurant is that during covid most of them where forced to sell through grab and co but the business models were never designed to give 32% to third parties, on top of that all generated revenues were declared to the revenue department prompting RD to control the businesses . Since most small restaurants were using only cash at that time and declared what they want they were not prepared to register for vat when sales exceeds 1.8M nor prepared to pay up to 35% in personal tax revenues which means basically working for nothing or increase the menu prices by at least 15% to survive which leads to drop of customers, combine that with inflation of raw materials=death

1 hour ago, Mburo said:

But….we’re told record number of tourists. Doesn’t make sense .

Have you checked out potential 7/11 take out sales ? Tourists are savvy these days, 

1 hour ago, Ben Zioner said:

Serves them right.

 

And it is going to get worse once RD steals 860k/year from me..

 

What or who are RD?

Just now, loong said:

 

What or who are RD?

 

 

Guessing the Revenue Department.....the Taxman cometh!!!

Very few places can seem to achieve the right balance of price, quality and service.
Consequently, I rarely eat out as I have had my fill of over-priced lousy food and lousy service!

1 minute ago, Will B Good said:

 

 

Guessing the Revenue Department.....the Taxman cometh!!!

Thank you

 

The  new DTV visa is the answer, i can already see all those highly paid digital nomads/cooking school/mua thai/ etc spending their wealth on fine dining. this is a game changer by the government

7 hours ago, Gottfrid said:

That does not mean the government must activate stimulus to failing businesses. Over exploitation is a disease in this country, and now they just have to pay the price for such stupid practice.

 

This is an international problem talk to the franchisees of Rotten Ronnie in the North America.

 

Here there are too many restaurants 

 

Too many fancy restaurants that think a piece of meet the size of a 10 baht coin is a meal.

 

Too many hotels

 

I agree let the market sort it out.

 

It is the same with anything the market and the buyers will decide

 

There is too much dependancy on the government to bail people out and no one realizes where that money comes from.

1 hour ago, John Drake said:

I don't understand, with all the Chinese, Indians, and Russians coming in for 60 days visa free, those restaurants should be packed.

Yes, you would think, as do I. Indians tend to eat in Indian food in general, there are plenty of Indian restaurants around.

The Chinese, I have never seen eating in a restaurant,or in a bar so where do they eat?

I don't see many Russians in Thai restaurants, I mainly see Europeans, Americans, Australians and Brits!

8 hours ago, webfact said:

On July 31st, 2024, Mr. Sorathep Rojpotjanaruch, the Chairman of the Thai Restaurant Business Association, revealed that the restaurant industry has faced a significant drop in spending, exceeding 50% recently.

The association had appealed to the Thai Prime Minister to address the current economic issues with immediate stimulus measures instead of solely relying on the upcoming 10,000-baht digital wallet scheme.

 

More than half of the Thai restaurants in the association could close by year-end without prompt action, remarked Sorathep.

 

The combined impact of rising raw material costs and declining consumer spending has left small restaurants struggling. Medium-sized and SME establishments are also suffering due to increased tax burdens. The lack of government response to their initial appeal has left business owners feeling abandoned, questioning the effectiveness of the current administration, concerned Sorathep.

The association plans to follow up next week and escalate their concerns if no response is received.

 

By Kittisak Phalaharn

 

Full story: THE PATTAYA NEWS 2024-08-02

 

-  Cigna offers a variety of health insurance plans designed to meet the minimum requirement for medical treatment coverage, with benefits reaching up to THB 3 million. These plans are tailored to provide comprehensive healthcare solutions for expatriates, ensuring peace of mind and access to quality medical services. To explore the full range of Cigna's expat health insurance options and find a plan that suits your needs, click here for more information.

 

Get our Daily Newsletter - Click HERE to subscribe

So, govt efforts to get tourists here by numbers seems to be working!  They reported that 22 million touritst have arrived since the beginning of the year through July.  At that rate unless it cools off due to severe flooding throughout Thailand they should have a RECORD year but that will be only in numbers but so far the money collected from the tourists is lower than expected.  Those "zero dollar" tours I guess.

Let the market decide who survives.

 

Why prop up the lousy food, overpriced, poor service or poorly marketed?

 

Thinning out the herd is good for the economy in the long run.

10 hours ago, Gottfrid said:

That does not mean the government must activate stimulus to failing businesses.

 

Thailand is a heavily subsidised society, so they have come to expect it.  Unfortunately, there isn't currently the same level of tourist spending to provide for the subsidies.

2 hours ago, Presnock said:

So, govt efforts to get tourists here by numbers seems to be working!  They reported that 22 million touritst have arrived since the beginning of the year through July.  At that rate unless it cools off due to severe flooding throughout Thailand they should have a RECORD year but that will be only in numbers but so far the money collected from the tourists is lower than expected.  Those "zero dollar" tours I guess.

 

The problem is, if those tourists are Russians, they may well not be genuine tourists and they may be patronising Russian businesses.  So they won't generate the subsidy fund that previous tourists did.

Edited August 2, 20241 yr by BangkokReady

2 hours ago, mikeymike100 said:

The Chinese, I have never seen eating in a restaurant,or in a bar so where do they eat?

In Pattaya I have seen Chinese families and individual travellers eating in local noodle shops with no more than 10/12 tables and then bus loads of them eating at buffet places specifically for the Chinese tour groups.......

 

From their website these restaurants are of a medium high level https://www.traausa.org/ so for the street restaurants will receive even more customers. 

 

So everything is fine

Remember when this time of year was considerred Low Tourist Season, as the Norther Hemisphere is in Summer when the

temperatures and weather is mild and most people have children who go to school, so they stay in their own countries.

I wonder if TAT and most people are not aware of this. I guess the Aussies and other southern hemisphere people may

want to escape the cool to cold weather of their Winter. As some posters say, maybe there are too many restaurants

getting opened when the demand is not high.

walk down any street in a tourist(y) section

these are just  "Labeled" as such ..   couple with the hundreds of BBQ/Thai/Noodle  etc etc on every street

Italian                          sushi               German

 

in short ......