Thai National Parks ordered to charge foreigners tenfold

[Keesters]

Obviously I understood you were asking me, what I do not understand is who you think I might be taking out on power trips. So again, who? Duh.

Well if you understood why didn't you answer the simple question. An answer that could only be yes or no as I never mentioned anything about who you might be taking on such a trip only asking if you made such trips which you had asked of me. Duh......

I am not sure why you can't grasp this but it is getting really embarrassing for you and I am going to leave it there. Sorry mate but I don't think you're capable of conversing at an adult level, so bye.

I could, and will, say exactly the same about you.

[skildpadden]

If they would be clever they would offer at every tourist entering the country a entry pass giving them the right to enter every national park for e.g, one moth asking may be 1000 BHT, or 2000BHT and the pass should include all family members. That would boost the number of visitors and in the end the income of the ministry. This is what other countries do (i can buy a national park pass in the states, before starting my travel)

Now with that fee a family with 2 children will have to pay 1200BHT for one entry.......incredible. they do not want the foreigners visiting their parks!!!!! What a shame for the country. And again most foreigners do not konow that the entrance fee is valuable for one day for all parks visited.

And the worst of that official practice is that Thai people think they are absolutely right to charge foreigners ten times what Thais have to pay for every service.

I agree. A family pass for access to all parks is good idea - it will increase number of foreign visitors and even if you should visit only one park - and perhaps thereby have paid more than this proposed fee, you would still feel treated fairly. Such passes are widely used all over the world and it is up to you to enjoy all the benefits.

[sambum]

Can't possibly be true they are not that stupid here are they!

"Additionally, Suwan predicted the increase would not affect the number of tourists who visit the park as fewer than 100 foreigners visited the park last year."

And probably even fewer this year when word gets out about the price hike! The same logic as applied to a bar complex at the end of a local soi who were charging 90 baht for a bottle of beer when all the other bars were charging 70 baht. When asked why, the response was "because we have no customers!" Guess what - there are now no bars there!

[sambum]

I really wonder why foreigners still allowed to pay same prices on public transport

and in food courts ??

Der PM Pryouth !

Please change this unbalance to ten fold immediately !!

Shhhh!

[Keesters]

Sorry, but my logic is the one shared by the tourist authorities in countries which have dual pricing whereas yours is just based on a poor understanding of the given lexis.

And that logic then is also discriminatory and just another way to cover up racism as the Thais often do in writing Thai prices in the little used Thai numerals. They know it is wrong but do it anyway.

A discount is a deduction from the usual cost of something. If the usual cost of entering a park is 400 baht and the majority Thai visitors receive a 90% discount then take away the foreigners and they should go bankrupt. Which they wouldn't because the 40 baht is the usual cost.

And note the topic heading. "Thai National Parks ordered to charge foreigners tenfold" not "Thai National Parks ordered to give Thais 90% discount".

You are making ridiculous assumptions about this situation. You presume that because Thais pay 40 baht that this is what is takes to run the park, in reality there is not limit to how much could be spent and every baht helps. The National Parks are funded by the government, they will not go "bankrupt" they are national parks not businesses.

You go by a newspaper headline if you want, I am going by official statements by the tourist authority, everywhere dual pricing happens they give the same reasoning, it is not to penalize foreigners but to provide incentive to locals.

And you presume that a Thai gets a discount from the regular price. Perhaps if the national parks were run like a business, a Farang one not a Thai one, they might be worth 400 baht to visit.

Incentice for locals!!! We are not talking locals as in the same town, city, province we are talking the whole country vs the rest of the planet. That is discrimination, not penalization. But if you wish to see it your deluded way and believe that the Thai nation is receiving a discount so be it. But there are many more who see it as it really is, racist. And that many more includes many of the Thai people themselves who would like to see this skin tax abolished.

[schondie]

I don't know what all the moaning is about. Most of the TV members are either living here on Non B or Non O visas so should get the Thai price in theory. 400 baht for a tourist isn't much.

Perhaps I've become too jaded over the years, I'm sick of visiting these parks and seeing litter that's rarely cleaned up the park staff.

[phuketrichard]

The increase there and at other parks was made in response to an announcement from the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department that admission fees for foreigners should be made consistent throughout the country as of Sunday.. should read as.. admission fees for people should be made consistent throughout the country. Seriously is there any other country in the world where foreigners are required to pay more to visit an attraction than residents ??

YEP

Angkor Wat tourist $20/day

Cambodians FREE

Bagan Tourist $10

Burmese FREE

Taj Mahal Tourist 750 INR ( apx $17 )

Indians; INR 50 for Indians, Nepalese and Bhutanese (apx $2.20)

Need i go on

Yes go on or let's say I do it for you

Perth Zoo $ 28 visitors from anywhere in the world or OZ same price

Kings park in Perth (voted one of the best in the world) free for everybody no matter where you come from

you want me to go on to ? You just pick Asian countries because they all rip offs

Have a good night

Parks in America its one price for all as well

Never thought of angkor wat,, Bagan or the taj as rip offs

I picked asian countries cause the visitors here have a much larger disposable income than the locals,

Why shouldn't those that dont live here & tourists that can afford it pay more? Makes it so the locals ( which do not have a large disposable income) can visit for reduced prices

Auckland War Memorial Museum - $25 for foreigners, free for Aucklanders

Students get discounts most places as do us old guys :-)

[rebelplatoon]

Another xenophobic law in place, good job. Like others posted, but a bit more clear: If you have black hair and Chinese looking eyes: Just be quiet you'll get in for the Thai rate. This will be great advertising abroad. Wish the TAT lots of luck with this one. Can someone point out the added value for people of Caucasian appearance as opposed to Asian appearance? Land of SMILES.

[outboard]

There are certain tourist attractions in Australia that the locals get discounts , still none of them are as little as $15 to enter. I do think it is a bit over the top that permanent residents don't pay the Local price but still $15 is not going to kill you

Another xenophobic law in place, good job. Like others posted, but a bit more clear: If you have black hair and Chinese looking eyes: Just be quiet you'll get in for the Thai rate. This will be great advertising abroad. Wish the TAT lots of luck with this one. Can someone point out the added value for people of Caucasian appearance as opposed to Asian appearance? Land of SMILES.

yeah that is not the system failing so much as the people within the system failing, I am surprised to read it though as all the Thais I know dislike the Chinese even more then the American tourists

Edited February 4, 2015 by outboard

[sambum]

I assume locals here wouldn't mind being charged ten times everyone else to go to visit Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks, Glacier National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, etc? Well, no need to stop there, just charge them double to go up to the top of the Empire State Building, visit the Statue of Liberty, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and similar sites around the world.

And while we're at it make it illegal for them to own land or the majority share in a company. Both of which should be Thai laws forbidding their citizens from doing overseas the same things that they forbid us in this country.

That wouldn't work! The laws would have to be passed by the countries that the Thais are investing in. Can you imagine Thai judges passing laws that forbid Thais from buying English football clubs, for example?

[romeijoe]

wont be long b4 there isnt any tourists willing to come here .

Edited February 4, 2015 by romeijoe

[Keesters]

You think national parks are bad? A friend of mine just stayed at a public hospital for a broken leg that needed surgery and subsequent two week stay. She paid nearly 200,000 Baht. The Thai lady in the other room only had to pay 30 Baht per day!

Can you imagine that in the West? Imagine a foreigner would walk into a UK hospital. Surely he would be covered under NHS and get the same cheap or free treatment as resident right? DREAM ON!

Public facilities are paid for largely by taxpayers. In any country.

So I will now repeat what I wrote about this subject a little while ago;

You need to make the difference between companies that have a two tier pricing structure and government funded places that charge more to foreigners than to locals.

If a shop asks more money from a foreigner, then that is plain dumb, and you can just walk away from it and find another shop that doesn't do this.

But if you want to visit a national park or zoo (or even hospital), and they charge then it is not so easy to go to a different park or zoo.

One needs to understand that these parks, zoos and such are not self sufficient entities that rely solely on admission income; The Dept of National Parks has approximately 6,000 officials, another 6,000 full time staff and some 20,000 temporary day workers in its employ. **The department consumes an annual state budget of a stable Bt8.2billion. That is taxpayer money** So Thai people already pay for visiting parks, regardless if they visit or not. At the same time, if a foreigner is employed in Thailand and pays his taxes, then he also helps pay for the parks. As such I completely understand why one would charge a foreigner more, providing the tax paying foreigner is exempted. And that is exactly my experience in nearly all national parks that I visited. When I show my drivinglicense and sometimes tax id card, I get charged the lower Thai price.

Don't even tourists pay VAT, and that includes things like hotel rooms & restaurants which locals don't necessarily patronize to nearly the same extent? Don't we pay fees & taxes & surcharges at the airport as well? Are tourists not the ones being extorted for cash by the police? ...by the scam artists? Are we not subject to purely racist two-tier pricing within the country as well (THAT being the price on which the VAT is based??). Are taxi drivers not now demanding an increase in their "entitlement to transport tourists to & from the airport, including a nice little extra earner for carrying their baggage ('don't imagine the average local thai going to & from & around town on a daily basis actually has much of that)? Of course tourists pay taxes! All kinds. Moreover, the vast majority are already paying taxes on whatever income they're bringing into Thailand back in their own countries! This logic that Thais are somehow entitled to tax & retax & re-retax us again & again on what we're bringing in and contributing to THEIR economy is just plain hairbrained!

And it isn't playing well, and will play less & less well. The greed factor really has consumed thai thinking. They won't much like where this is leading them. More importantly perhaps, neither will foreign investors, who do have alternatives, even eager, competitive alternatives.

Moreover, how much of these thai budgets could really stand up to some close budgetary scrutiny in the first place? How much of these add-on collections from tourists are actually just paying for increasing levels of nepotism, incompetence, and plain old corruption? I know I know - a few hereabouts are already screaming "that happens everywhere" - Thailand is charging out ahead of the pack, and coming on fast.

Last and least, if you have a thai driving license as well as a thai tax id, you're hardly the average tourist, now are you?... Unless you're quite a heavy hitter, I'll bet you're not actually paying that much tax on your thai income, and not a lot of the extra taxes tourists have to contend with mentioned above. You yourself state that by presenting your thai D/L and tax id you evade the higher prices/fees charged tourists.

Forget the word tourist. The different prices are based on Thai vs the rest of the world which in reality comes down to Asian vs non-Asian. If it were tourist based then Bangkok Thais visiting this park would be paying a higher rate than those who live near the park. Thailand has plenty of in-country tourists and that is not the issue. The issue is race.

[BuckBee]

well angkor Wat is worth the money, Thai National Parks on the whole didn't give value for money at under 100Bt.

Hope it makes things worse for park figures as this country deserves to start suffering for its constant stupidity & greed .

[sambum]

The increase there and at other parks was made in response to an announcement from the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department that admission fees for foreigners should be made consistent throughout the country as of Sunday.. should read as.. admission fees for people should be made consistent throughout the country. Seriously is there any other country in the world where foreigners are required to pay more to visit an attraction than residents ??

Yes, there are other countries where foreigners are required more to visit attractions, Switzerland and Finland for example. The best way to look at it is not as foreigners pay more but that locals are discounted.

It can also go the other way, in Japan some attractions are discounted for foreigners.

So, just because Switzerland and Finland have double pricing scheme it makes it right?

I did not give an opinion on what I thought was right or wrong so I am not sure how you arrived at that one.

I think he was asking you a question i.e. "it makes it right?"

[soalbundy]

Fight back, get a Thai friend to write stories about there being blood thirsty ghosts in the forests of the NP should drop their income to zero.

[White Christmas13]

OK guys just came back from holidays in Europe a few month ago ( including wife and nephew)

We went to Germany,Holland, Belgium,Austria,Switzerland and in every country we paid the

same price as locals in every park, castle, boat trip,food or what ever we bought.

[MartinL]

I don't know what all the moaning is about. Most of the TV members are either living here on Non B or Non O visas so should get the Thai price in theory. 400 baht for a tourist isn't much.

Perhaps I've become too jaded over the years, I'm sick of visiting these parks and seeing litter that's rarely cleaned up the park staff.

It's been posted before in this thread but, according to the official quoted in this link - http://www.thephuketnews.com/tax-paying-foreigners-not-entitled-to-local-price-at-national-parks-50333.php - NOTHING entitles a foreigner to local rates in Thai National Parks, not WP, not DL, not tax documents, nothing. If you're not a Thai then it's foreigner rate for you, matey.

Got to agree with you about the rubbish everywhere. Where before she used to be accepting of all the crap lying about the country, after a couple of trips outside Thailand & seeing how much cleaner other places are, she's now as critical of the mess as I am.

Edited February 4, 2015 by MartinL

[Keesters]

I assume locals here wouldn't mind being charged ten times everyone else to go to visit Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks, Glacier National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, etc? Well, no need to stop there, just charge them double to go up to the top of the Empire State Building, visit the Statue of Liberty, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and similar sites around the world.

And while we're at it make it illegal for them to own land or the majority share in a company. Both of which should be Thai laws forbidding their citizens from doing overseas the same things that they forbid us in this country.

That wouldn't work! The laws would have to be passed by the countries that the Thais are investing in. Can you imagine Thai judges passing laws that forbid Thais from buying English football clubs, for example?

The law cannot to be made by the country a Thai may invest in as that would be discrimination. The law would have to be a Thai law forbidding Thais to do the same outside their country as we are forbidden to do in theirs. It is called equality. If Thailand deems in wrong for foreigners to own land in Thailand then equally they should deem it wrong for Thais to own land outside of Thailand. Equal rights. Anything else is hypocrisy.

[Jim walker]

All the more reason not to visit the Thai national parks I used to enjoy touring around Thailand visiting and walking in the National Parks Temples etc but I do not want people to think look at that stupid farang he paid 10 times more than me for the privilege of walking here welcome to the land of smirks, next time I fancy a bit of culture I think we will just pop over the border to Angkor Archaeological Park and spend my money in Cambodia instead of greedy Thailand, who hate and despise tourists rather go some ware where I am appreciated to spend my money.

[ttthailand]

These parks should be free to tourists and should be well maintained so tourist bring nice photos and memories back to their home countries. This is a cheap way to promote Thailand.

Now Instead of seeing all the beautiful waterfalls and parks many tourists will only see the dirty streets and beaches and red light areas. Short sided thinking, some one should be fired !

[sambum]

"The entrance fee to the Phu Hin Rong Kla National Park in Phitsanulok province will increase the cost of entrance for foreigners from THB200 to THB400, according to a spokesman."

10 fold?

I would take 10 fold to mean 10 times more that being 2,000, 200 baht to 400baht is 100% increase. Would you not agree.

I think they mean 10 times more than a Thai would pay, and at the moment you are paying 5 times more. For example, the Thai pays 40 baht entrance fee, and you pay 200 baht, The proposal is that you should have to pay 400 baht which is 10 times more than a Thai pays. Can you imagine a Thai in another foreign country ( England, for instance) visiting a stately home or museum where the entrance fee is say 5 pounds for English people, and being asked to pay 50 pounds because he/she is a foreigner?

Personally, I think it is once again a perfect example of Thai "anti -logic" and in a previous post I compared it to the over pricing in bars because they had no customers, and the bars are now no longer in existence. Perhaps the policy makers who proposed these increases might see a message there?

Edited February 4, 2015 by sambum

[Phuketboy]

We can all work this way. From now on lets charge the Thai's 10 times more for entering, using or buying any foreign product or business here in the land of smiles. For any foreign investment they can pay 10 times more return on the investment as well. 10 times more for their airfares, 10 times more for movie tickets (except Thai movies). They want a 2 tier system let's give them one. But it will need the world behind us LOL.

[DM07]

Most Farang tourists wouldn't have a clue, so what is all this whining going to achieve? Just don't go if you're too tight to pay 400 baht or are on a budget. Just stay home, get drunk and spill tears over the keyboard while you type your complaint and sit there contemplating the good old days, none of which we will see again.

Yeah...if it only was that easy!

Tourist companies nowadays fight tooth and nail for every dollar!

F.e. negotiate about a raise of transfer - fares (Suvarnabhumi to Hotel on Sukhumvit) of THB 20!

Yes!

20 Baht!

That is too much!

So imagine an increase in Nationalpark- fares from ...let's say 200 to 400 THB!

How do I know?

I work for a tourism- company!

We have some 70 employees and THIS affects us!

Negatively!

Very much!

So take your pathetic "Just stay home, get drunk"- crap and understand, that this creates problems in THE REAL WORLD!

Something you have clearly lost all contact with!

Jeeezassssss!

[sambum]

I assume locals here wouldn't mind being charged ten times everyone else to go to visit Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks, Glacier National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, etc? Well, no need to stop there, just charge them double to go up to the top of the Empire State Building, visit the Statue of Liberty, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and similar sites around the world.

And while we're at it make it illegal for them to own land or the majority share in a company. Both of which should be Thai laws forbidding their citizens from doing overseas the same things that they forbid us in this country.

That wouldn't work! The laws would have to be passed by the countries that the Thais are investing in. Can you imagine Thai judges passing laws that forbid Thais from buying English football clubs, for example?

The law cannot to be made by the country a Thai may invest in as that would be discrimination. The law would have to be a Thai law forbidding Thais to do the same outside their country as we are forbidden to do in theirs. It is called equality. If Thailand deems in wrong for foreigners to own land in Thailand then equally they should deem it wrong for Thais to own land outside of Thailand. Equal rights. Anything else is hypocrisy.

Correct, that would be discrimination, a perfect example being the one that you quoted in the opening line in your opening post! Ignore all of my post except the final sentence!

Edited February 4, 2015 by sambum

[outboard]

OK guys just came back from holidays in Europe a few month ago ( including wife and nephew)

We went to Germany,Holland, Belgium,Austria,Switzerland and in every country we paid the

same price as locals in every park, castle, boat trip,food or what ever we bought.

last time I went to Cyprus I was getting in at local prices by keeping my mouth shut and letting my local friend buy the tickets

[soalbundy]

wont be long b4 there isnt any tourists willing to come here .

They will always come. Sheep like to be sheared.

[mathias67]

Can't possibly be true they are not that stupid here are they!

"Additionally, Suwan predicted the increase would not affect the number of tourists who visit the park as fewer than 100 foreigners visited the park last year."

Why don't visitors go to these parks????? because they do not like dual pricing. Go to the UK and most if not all other countries and it is one price for all. They really are trying to tell foreigners to stay away and I understand they are expecting 29 millions this year. I would suggest they revise their figures downward.

By the way I have lived in Thailand a number of years and have a Thai car/motorbike licence and a property here so am I going to be treated as a tourist ???? As someone else commented when are we going to be charged for going on the beach ????

[spunkie]

Go to koh San road buy a Thai driving licence 1500 baht sorted !

[4jasmin]

as expected :

most comments are pathetic...

instead of picking up my idea, go through the common lay in thailand

and find out, if this rise is even legal

[smotherb]

Problem is that most Filipinos, Malaysians, Indonesians, Laotians, Burmese, Cambodians, Chinese and even Japanese and Koreans among other generic Asians get the local price too if they shut their mouths and smile.

There are plenty of cosmetic surgeons here in Thailand. I am sure they can make you look Asian; then you can get into the parks for cheap--if you can keep your mouth shut and smile.