Thursday, May 5, 2005

Phuket ‘badly needs a plan’

PHUKET CITY: Phuket desperately needs a long-term development strategy following the tsunami, a Phuket Chamber of Commerce (PCC) seminar entitled “Phuket Alert” was told yesterday.

The PCC is considering development issues facing the province and will make recommendations within two months so that they can be included in a development plan for Phuket now being drafted by the National Economic to Social Development Board (NESDB). The seminar, intended as a “brainstorming session”, was attended by tourism industry representatives, academics and government officials.

PCC President Eam Thavornwongwongse, who led the discussion at The Metropole Hotel, noted that the lack of an integrated development strategy long pre-dated the tsunami disaster.

He likened land in Phuket to slices of a pie for which there has been no distribution control – with investors interested only in maximizing profits from the slices they happened to control, without looking at the bigger picture.

“The end result is that Phuket has developed in a haphazard fashion, with illegal development clearly visible all around the island and especially along beaches,” he said, adding that the culprits were both Thai and foreign.

“Second, there hasn’t been enough assistance from public utilities in [restoring] telephone service, electrical and water supply after the tsunami. Third, we have to ask ourselves if our elected officials … are really working to the the full extent of their abilities and are using their budgets in a way that best benefits the province,” he added.

“Finally, we are still going to have to wait three or four years before the NESDB development plan takes effect. Can we really accept all of these things?,” he asked rhetorically.

K. Eam said that restoring Phuket’s tourism economy to normal levels by the next high season was essential, otherwise a variety of social ills – including crime – could result from having 35,000 hotel rooms unfilled and 40,000 hotel workers unemployed or underemployed.

He suggested organizing “roadshows” abroad as one way to address the downturn in tourism arrivals.

source:phuketgazzette

.... Phuket has developed in a haphazard fashion, with illegal development clearly visible all around the island ....

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Illegal development? Spot the mistake:

Oh! That's just a wee bit of encroachment into a city right of way. Nobody will ever notice. Never mind. Mai pen rai!

Oh! That's just a wee bit of encroachment into a city right of way. Nobody will ever notice. Never mind. Mai pen rai!

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There is a lot of work going on right now in Phuket - widening roads and relaying sois. My own soi has been turned from a pot holed single width track into a nice new two lane (just about) concrete road with a yellow line down the middle and small black and white painted bollards at the edges. And most important of all, new drains!

So I'm waiting to see what's going to happen when they come to widen this bit of road - right next to a school in Rawai. Because when they widen it, they go right up to the electric poles - and no messing about, as some people in my soi will confirm (the ones who had "their" hedges removed ).

We recently put up a perimeter wall and before starting we sought advise from government officials. As long as we stayed INSIDE the power poles there would be no problems. That house is only a meter and a half or so on the wrong side. That's one of the problems in Thailand. People who encroach on public land SHOULD be forced to remove whatever it is they have put there. Here in Loei province we have people who have built dwellings in plain view on government land. As long as nothing is ever done it will continue and people consider it their right to steal land.

We recently put up a perimeter wall and before starting we sought advise from government officials. As long as we stayed INSIDE the power poles there would be no problems. That house is only a meter and a half or so on the wrong side. That's one of the problems in Thailand. People who encroach on public land SHOULD be forced to remove whatever it is they have put there. Here in Loei province we have people who have built dwellings in plain view on government land. As long as nothing is ever done it will continue and people consider it their right to steal land.

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Notice the "For Sale" sign - bottom left of the picture I'm wondering who's going to buy it without noticing how far it sticks out between the posts! There are two or three other houses in this row, all very close together. I think they started building at the other end and got their sums wrong.

We recently put up a perimeter wall and before starting we sought advise from government officials. As long as we stayed INSIDE the power poles there would be no problems. That house is only a meter and a half or so on the wrong side. That's one of the problems in Thailand. People who encroach on public land SHOULD be forced to remove whatever it is they have put there. Here in Loei province we have people who have built dwellings in plain view on government land. As long as nothing is ever done it will continue and people consider it their right to steal land.

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Notice the "For Sale" sign - bottom left of the picture I'm wondering who's going to buy it without noticing how far it sticks out between the posts! There are two or three other houses in this row, all very close together. I think they started building at the other end and got their sums wrong.

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dont worry, some one will buy it!

who knows the agent, my bid 500 baht

Where should I start!

Long-term development strategy should start by stopping all the little things that pissoff tourists:

-A campaign to make people understand that littering is not acceptable for both Thais and tourists even if they have to give big fine to stop it

-Stop the tuk tuk mafia from scamming tourists

-Stop the tuk tuk from running all night long and the beeping of tourists for a ride

-Stop the police from scamming tourists

-Make a special law for closing hour in tourist place like Patong

-Stop blocking the street or soi with market

-Stop letting people from using public parking to rent car and motorbike

-Stop the people who are doing poll on the street and the beach and wake you up at 8h00 the next morning to pursue their little scam

-Stop every jetski rental

And the long list of little things like that when sum up made people thinking twice before they decide to comming back again.

A example of that, the first year that I went to Phuket the road police scam, 200 baht for no helmet but only at a road block for 1 hour every night at the corner of Ra-U-Thit and Bangla clearly a scam to make baht from tourists. Second trip at the road block (now I have my helmet) 200 baht for not having my international driving permit, next trip 200 baht for ridding the motorbike with the light on in the day (make note that in my country you will be find for not having it on), next trip 200 baht because my head light is off in the day, last trip 200 baht for not having a Thai driving license for motorbike even if I had my internationnal driving license.

It is not the price of the fine who piss me off but the feeling that every year they will find something to scam me off for 200 baht. They should put a boot at the airport so every year I can pay my 200 baht to the police for make things easier for the tourist, OH NO! they can not do that because the taxi motorbike scam to go pay your fine at the police station and coming to your bike will be loosing their money on that scam.

The first year I had to go to the police station with a taxi motorbike the station was full of tourists and they were there to pay the same 200 baht fine and the boy in brown were overload with the paper filling, no problem the taxi motorbike driver were filling the paper for the cops, now tell me it is not a scam.