Business, city leaders ponder tourism fixes after latest Russian plunge
PATTAYA:--Tourism dominated the most-recent meeting of Pattaya’s business and political leaders after final statistics for 2014 showed an even-steeper drop in visitors from Russia.

Russian arrivals in Thailand plummeted 27.4 percent year-on-year in December as the ruble currency crisis deepened. The plunge followed 21.2 percent and 23.3 percent year-on-year drops in November and October, respectively.

Pol. Maj. Gen. Nitipong Niamnoi, commander of Chonburi’s provincial police, joins the discussion with Pattaya business operators and listens to complaints about traffic problems in Pattaya.

December’s decline also contrasted sharply with tourist arrivals from every other major market, which all recovered from the December 2013 when 36 countries issued warnings against Thailand travel due to violent street protests in Bangkok.

The Pattaya Business & Tourism Association, meeting at the Grand Sole Hotel Jan. 14 - the day the December and year-end figures were released - was told that tourism revenue in 2014 fell more than 2 billion baht, representing a 30 percent decline from a year earlier.

- See more at: http://www.pattayamail.com/localnews/business-city-leaders-ponder-tourism-fixes-after-latest-russian-plunge-44453#sthash.hhSBeeMa.dpuf

-- Pattaya Mail 2015-01-23

"TAT Pattaya already has plans to joined trade shows in Indonesia, Eastern Europe, China and South Korea. For domestic marketing, it will stress art and cultural tourism and visitors from the northern and upper-central regions."

Pattaya doesn't need to participate on trade shows but to improve other shows available there.

Tourists do not go to Pattaya for the culture but for other entertainment.

Please, someone tell TAT, to try and understand some basic things..............

May be a big "The Putinites Have Gone" PR drive to attract visitors from other countries.

Do away with bar fines.

Hey maybe if the jet ski mafia stops ripping off and assaulting

Indian tourists, additional tourists could come from that

sector... :-) Personally I am not sorry to see the

Russians fade away.

Isn't the new sporting activity designed to bring in more than enough to compensate?

Well, the latest stint by the city's fathers on the underpass does not help. European travel agents visiting and spoken to consider this a major set-back creating tremendous traffic jams for the coming three years (delays excluded).

The Thai-Belgian Bridge on Bangkok's Rama IV - as an overpass from Wireless to Sathorn - took a weekend (60 hours) to install; the traffic on that bridge was, is and always will be much more busy than the Pattaya underpass.

Hence the tour buses shall get stucked in traffic for hours, specially on weekends where Thai and Bangkok expats would like to come to town; the difference is not only three years but most probably tremendous lining of certain pockets

Make this country a safer place for the tourists, they may start coming back again. If not no matter what you do other than xxx tourism there won't be much coming here

Welcome to Economics 101 ---

Economies run in "up and down" cycles and the Russian ruble in this case is the hostage for Russian nationals who made an investment into Thailand/Pattaya.

Pattaya/Thailand leaders and business Executives need to look forward to marketing to their tourist demographics statistics. They need to also look at more then just tourist stats; GDP and financial status/outlook for each country to get the bang for their marketing dollars.

Lets see , the ruble is way down, the euro is headed that way , Aus dollar down , Chinese growth is slowing down. What economy is booming right now? USA? They should promote Thailand not just to US tour groups but on late night TV adds promoting Pattaya as a great place for adult entertiament for singles and a great palce for the baby boomers to retire too. All those vacant condo's and properties could be lowered to realistic prices which many retired could buy as a nice warm safe place to retire to with a lot of activities for retired couples to take in such as beaches , trarvel to other areas in Thailand and Asia, low costs and malls bigger than what we have in USA but I have never seen any videos or adds for Thailand when I lived on east coast in USA.

But they have to respond to the rip offs , jet ski scams, and assaults on travelers if they don't want to see a real downturn in expats and tourists.Could also promote to the elderly the lower cost to live in Thailand and medical facilities for their long term health care and also medical tourism---which also means don't start jacking up the prices if you start getting a lot of persons coming over--if its no longera bargain they will go elsewhere.

a slur post removed along with a crude post and a reply quoting that

Cant have it both ways, one minute they hate the Russians, then the next minute they miss them long time,

Time to revalue the Baht, most major currencies have dropped against the US$, however the baht has not moved.This will affect Thai exports and tourism. Neighboring countries are considerably cheaper and will attract tourist away from Thailand. I for one have recently visited Vietnam,Cambodia,China and Loa

all good value and welcoming.

Thais need to put something back into the country , most the attractions here have lost their shine, dirty beaches , rubbish everywhere , what tourists wants to see that let alone all the scams and double pricing i surprise thailand has enjoyed the tourist dollar for as long as it has,

Cant have it both ways, one minute they hate the Russians, then the next minute they miss them long time,

The Thais miss their money, not them. And Thais would feel the same way about anyone else who stops coming here.

If Thailand relies ony on their beaches they will have less and less tourists in the future as there is much more in Thailand such as the National Parks (but not developed for any foreign tourists or eco tourism

And yes why not treat the longstayers and retired people well: a big big market but not under the circumstances of manner and laws and perspective for the older generation....

and and and...there is sooo much more but Thais dont wont to hear or learn from others! Loose face ..but they loose face! and money!

Give me more hotels around the quality of what the flipper lodge used to be and at a more reasonable price and without any of the "free" buffet nonsense. I don't like the buffet and I certainly don't want the same thing to eat every day. Make beach road pretty like it was around 2006 when there were flower beds and the palm trees and the other trees still had branches and leaves. Maybe even, now hold your breath, make the beach clean and swimmable? I honestly don't know how to do that given that even major beach areas here in the USA like San Diego and Los Angeles often post swimming advisories due to storms and rain water runoff. Pattaya with its older buildings and who knows what is under the ground for septic and sewar and gray water disposal. Where is the water treatment plant in Pattaya? Do any of those hotles on Soi 6,7,8 actually send dirty water to the plant(s)?

There is no simple tourism fixes, until Thailand listen to the expat community and tourists.

So many things need to be changed, but nothing seems to be improved, it's only getting worse.

Many foreigners goes to other countries in the region. Cambodia, Philippines and Vietnam, all enjoy increase in tourist numbers.

I'm surprised to see so many former Thai expats now living here in the Philippines.

We all rather be living or visit Thailand, but enough is enough.

Thailand: Listen to your tourists, makes us feel safer, stop all the different scams against us - and we will come back.

i predicted this 2-3 years ago, i was figureing by march the thais would be looseing it, but they actually realized it even before febuary.

thailand's new high season is again as i predicted it would be years ago= from december 15th to january 10th, with another nice 3 ish days on sonkran.

the days of november till april 20th being packed with people is a thing of the past, the value isnt here anymore.

romance tourism aka hanging with the women here gets old, it just does, after that your left with thailand , and today its 2015, its a global hook up culture, does the youth today need thailand for a right of passage into promiscuity?

the new demorgraphic is thailand worst demographic, the old timers on pensions who live like locals and drink at home and eat there too a good portion of the time.

the dollar was at 40 ten years ago, the euro at what 50 plus, the pound at 70...

the thing is for the hard core thai devotee its about to get great again,, less jerks around, sadly more thai violence.

I have zero sympathy for the developers and speculators. I laugh at their problems. Same with the bar and restaurant owners and the English teachers.