So, How Busy Is High Season?

[MisterFingers]

This is the quietest I have seen Pattaya.

Are you serious? There's a lot of tourists around right now. Were you not here around the time of the airport closure?...that was a quiet time, but not now.

Beer bars and other bars do not profit from the "real" tourists, so using beer bars and other sex trade related industries can give a false indication on how the tourist trade is going in general. Pattaya is going through a transformation that will not help the sex trade.

Dream on!

And what Sex trade? Who is trading whom?

You're either joking or stupid.

A 'trade' refers to a market, or the livelihood of the people in that particular market:

trade 

–noun 1. the act or process of buying, selling, or exchanging commodities, at either wholesale or retail, within a country or between countries: domestic trade; foreign trade.

2. a purchase or sale; business deal or transaction.

3. an exchange of items, usually without payment of money.

4. any occupation pursued as a business or livelihood.

5. some line of skilled manual or mechanical work; craft: the trade of a carpenter; printer's trade.

6. people engaged in a particular line of business: a lecture of interest only to the trade.

7. market: an increase in the tourist trade.

8. a field of business activity: a magazine for the furniture trade.

9. the customers of a business establishment.

[BROWNY]

I'd say this is the best year ever to travel in Thailand because it will never get any cheaper

Cheaper ?

What currency are YOU using ?

Thai Baht judging by joopjips assertion that he/she is Thai. Can't argue with the post - my Thai friends tell me it is a good time to travel in Thailand for them.

For me ? the exchange rate is killing me.

[Basil B]

$ has been pretty stable.

Trust the Yanks to light the blue touch paper and come up smelling of roses again...

[Humphrey Bear]

This is the quietest I have seen Pattaya.

Are you serious? There's a lot of tourists around right now. Were you not here around the time of the airport closure?...that was a quiet time, but not now.

Beer bars and other bars do not profit from the "real" tourists, so using beer bars and other sex trade related industries can give a false indication on how the tourist trade is going in general. Pattaya is going through a transformation that will not help the sex trade.

These Russian and Asian package tourists do nothing to fill Pattaya traders bank accounts.

They pay for the trip and the hotel in their own currency, walk around the streets and buy the occasional ice-cream.

The only money that reaches Pattaya is the wages of the hotel workers and bus drivers.

Basic economics of a package-tour beach resort is that there has to be other sources of income - good restaurants, good souvenirs, god attractions other than the ones included in the package-tour price.

Pattaya has bars and go-go's. These are not attractions for the bulk of the tourists currently wandering round the streets trying to find places to spend their money.

[moo9]

These Russian and Asian package tourists do nothing to fill Pattaya traders bank accounts.

They pay for the trip and the hotel in their own currency, walk around the streets and buy the occasional ice-cream.

The only money that reaches Pattaya is the wages of the hotel workers and bus drivers.

Basic economics of a package-tour beach resort is that there has to be other sources of income - good restaurants, good souvenirs, god attractions other than the ones included in the package-tour price.

Pattaya has bars and go-go's. These are not attractions for the bulk of the tourists currently wandering round the streets trying to find places to spend their money.

Very true and the bars, gogo's nad nighttime entertainment were and will be the main attractions of Pattaya.

Cheers

[thaibeachlovers]

Now that the £ has reached a low not seen since '96, but with everything at least twice the price of then, is it having an effect in reality, more so than the last 3 months? Are lots of retired UK expats packing to return home? It's certainly stuffed any hope I had of spending the next 6 months there, sob, sob.

[wileycoyote]

Sounds depressing!

[anothertorres]

i live here and all i have to say is, traffic is a bitch these nights. and winter seems to have left already

[moo9]

I noticed that some bus loads of Asians are returning to town (Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese). Over the Christmas / New Year period they were almost absent. The city seemed to be busy over the long weekend, but let's wait how it will be in the coming days.

Traffic issues were only caused by the opening of the Central Shopping center on Beach Road / 2nd road.

[bkkjames]

at the hotel we checked into on the weekend 4 star, near soi 16 in naklua, i estimate 20% occupancy. russians and a few chinese, thais.

[Gary A]

After reading many posts that talk about Pattaya/Jomtien being deserted, I didn't see it that way. I have seen more tourists and I have seen less high season tourists over the years. Some bars are quite busy and some are deserted. That has always been a normal thing. Well managed businesses seem to be doing fine and poorly managed businesses are deserted as usual. Bars have been WELL beyond the saturation point for years. Perhaps eventually farangs will decide that there are far too many bars to support the number of customers available.

[barryofthailand]

Whether you know it or not, Pattaya is enjoying a great high season as all the hotels are fully booked. I live in Korat and was gong to take a trip to Pattaya for a week, but as I say all the hotels are solidly booked until Feb 13th.

Barry

[basjke]

Whether you know it or not, Pattaya is enjoying a great high season as all the hotels are fully booked. I live in Korat and was gong to take a trip to Pattaya for a week, but as I say all the hotels are solidly booked until Feb 13th.

Barry

I have several friends who stay here at the moment and at different hotels and they all say that their hotel is less then 50 percent occupied.Probably you checked at the wrong hotels.

[beechguy]

Whether you know it or not, Pattaya is enjoying a great high season as all the hotels are fully booked. I live in Korat and was gong to take a trip to Pattaya for a week, but as I say all the hotels are solidly booked until Feb 13th.

Barry

If you say so, but hard for me to believe. Perhaps the hotels being busy during that time frame, is because of the motorcycle rally, not the normal high season? Still hard to believe there aren't some vacancies though.

Edited January 28, 2009 by beechguy

[tropo]

Whether you know it or not, Pattaya is enjoying a great high season as all the hotels are fully booked. I live in Korat and was gong to take a trip to Pattaya for a week, but as I say all the hotels are solidly booked until Feb 13th.

Barry

If you say so, but hard for me to believe. Perhaps the hotels being busy during that time frame, is because of the motorcycle rally, not the normal high season? Still hard to believe there aren't some vacancies though.

Whether we believe that or not, Pattaya has definitely been getting a lot busier lately and there are tons of happy Russians about.

[Phil Conners]

"happy Russians" - isn't that an oxymoron? They don't look very happy to me, always arguing and grumbling ...

[thaibeachlovers]

Had a trip down memory lane to find this thread from way back!

As the £ continues to languish at almost mid 90s exchange rates, and nothing I have read indicates a lowering of prices, I have had to accept hard reality, and continue working over here to fund a shorter ( and split ) holiday. Bummer.

Anyway, in a couple of weeks I'll be back there, and able to answer my own question! Hope there's still something left to enjoy, nudge nudge.

[tropo]

Sounds depressing!

It depends on your point of view. I spend US dollars and don't see as many Brits.

Life is good!

[JR Texas]

Here in Naklua/Pattaya things look like Business as usual. I would even say a bit better than last year cause I had to wait for a table at my favorite restaurant, that never happened before, also the local cafe "La Bagette" was totally packed today with no free tables at all for hours.

Also I have heard of people having trouble finding rooms at the moment, especially in the 1000-3000 baht range. There are still plenty of rooms in the 200-500 bath range and of cause in the 10,000 to 50,000 bath range (yes we do have several of such hotels here)

I left Pattaya on December 13. I had been there since October. Many gogos and bars were definitely not crowded. Hotels were charging high season rates while 50% full. Spent three days in Bangkok and saw the same thing. The only dead place was Sukothai. I went up there for two days to see the old ruins. It was worth the trip. The hotels were not great, but one guesthouse that was fairly quiet was cheap. Heck, I think there were three guests there. Maybe 10% full!

I didn't give a dam_n about PAD. But the whole thing did hilight the fact that the military is in charge of the country. They overthrew Thaksin and tossed out the constitution and then submitted their own. Since they keep tossing out the constitution instead of using a defined procedure to change it, they convinced me to not ever put any significant money into the country. That and the recent 30 down to 15 day visa change made what was an easy one day van ride to the border now involve a lot more time, and effort and money to get to an airport and fly to another airport and back. I just got disgusted with the whole mess and elected to not make one more (my second) visa run and stay into January.

I am glad you mentioned something other than the airport closure...........the downturn was related to the airport closure, the global economy collapsing, Toxins horrible economic policies (that hurt the masses and are still being felt even after he has "gone,", and the horrific visa rule changes that have taken place, especially over the past ten years. Xenophobia continues to rise. Thailand is no longer expat friendly........seems to also want to push 90% of its tourism market away (i.e., tourists who are not rich). The thing that surprises me most is not that tourism is down and places like Pattaya-Jomtien have gone downhill, rather, it is that prices remain high or are even increasing. It does not make sense from an economic perspective.........at least a traditional one embraced by most countries worldwide.