Pattaya is dead

[striderman]

saturday i can promise you all the sports bars in and around soi lk will be packed as there is a full footy program and about midnight the start of the rugby 6 nations

[balo]

Maybe we should start a thread called: Pattaya is alive and kicking.

[Jip99]

Maybe we should start a thread called: Pattaya is alive and kicking.

That would bring out even more simple minds............................

[WitawatWatawit]

With the absurd arrest of the bridge players, this thread has suddenly taken on a portentous tone.

[JSixpack]

Maybe we should start a thread called: Pattaya is alive and kicking.

Anyone daring to post in such a thread could ONLY be a real estate agent. And you know what the mere thought does to the nerves of our sensitive members. OMG. All those soiled knickers . . . . Shudder!

And where's the fun? Pattaya died many years ago, you see. Since then, must be nothin' left here but a corpse—annually exhumed; thoroughly autopsied; pronounced by TVF Coroners as undeniably, certifiably, most reliably DEAD again; and then reburied again . . . and again . . . and again . . . . Ghoulish, innit?

Especially if you don't even live here, LOL. Why can't the dead rest in peace? We ghosts will just continue the party anyway.

I'll give a brief history of the "perpetual exhumations of the dead" in another place. But news of yet another Exhumation and issuance of another Death Certificate by our Coroners can be good. Stay tuned.

[phycokiller]

actually very busy tonight for unknown reasons

[JHolmesJr]

actually very busy tonight for unknown reasons

Lots of bored bridge players with nothing to do.

[thaiduncankk]

actually very busy tonight for unknown reasons

Lots of bored bridge players with nothing to do.

Two choices: go out and get bladdered, or a quiet, friendly game of bridge.

I know which one I would choose.

[VIPinthailand]

lot of business closed. who said this place is booming?

walk in Tesco and you see these shops empty.

in USA, Walmart is closing. k mart is gone...

so don't tell me Pattaya is going well with 3 customers a day sipping Lao beer at 2 bucks.

[JSixpack]

lot of business closed. who said this place is booming?

walk in Tesco and you see these shops empty.

in USA, Walmart is closing. k mart is gone...

so don't tell me Pattaya is going well with 3 customers a day sipping Lao beer at 2 bucks.

You made your point in your very first post, which was a troll post anyway. Suppose we all agree with you; then what? Would there any significance to that opinion? You can't change Pattaya. And members who enjoy living here, such as me, are just going to continue enjoying living here as we have for many years. Suck it up.

In the end, there are about three choices: you adapt to Pattaya and be happy; leave and be happy; or just hang around (maybe not even here) and bore everyone with childish sneering, bitching, and moaning about Pattaya. Or schoolmarm warnings.

Are you new around here? We have DYING PATTAYA threads yearly, sometimes twice yearly as we have to have one for the low season and then we have to repeat everything for the high season. You can always find plenty of posters to agree with you. Even in 1997 in the Mailbag section of the Pattaya Mail we had a Death Certficate issued and were told everyone's moving to Cambodia.

Besides that, we may have some special "stake through the heart" events, such as the rise in visa fees in 2003 or the widening of Beach Rd. in 2013, that spell the ABSOLUTE FINAL END.

Why not just pop a cold Chang, kick back, and enjoy a few days of reading hundreds of posts that agree with you? Will that be satisfying enough?

2007: Pattaya's Dead

2008: Is Pattaya Dead Right Now?

2009: Pattaya Is Dead Dead Dead

2010: Why Is Everything Closing Down?

2011: Even More Dead Than Last Year?

2012: What'S Next For A Beach Tourist Destination Like Pattaya?

2013: Widening Of Beach Rd Started At North End

2014: Is Pattaya really on the bones of it arse at the minute?

2015: Low season is really low

[morrobay]

lot of business closed. who said this place is booming?

walk in Tesco and you see these shops empty.

in USA, Walmart is closing. k mart is gone...

so don't tell me Pattaya is going well with 3 customers a day sipping Lao beer at 2 bucks.

Re "lot of business closed " For accuracy can you and anyone else just name and give location of these closed businesses ?

Edited February 11, 2016 by morrobay

[brewsterbudgen]

Last night the bars around soi Bukaow, the gogos in sois 15 and Diamond, and Sugarbaby were packed. No noticeable sign of Death in Pattaya.

[newnative]

What a big pile of steaming elephant poop, VIPinThailand. 'Walmart is closing'. Hmm. Sounds like they are going out of business. Oh, dear. In reality (you remember reality), Walmart is closing a few stores, out of thousands they own, including some concept smaller stores that didn't meet sales expectations. In most cases, shoppers will still have a Walmart not that far from the closed store. And, even though they are closing stores, they are also opening lots of new ones. It's business. Stores open, stores close. Some succeed, some fail. Same with the shops at Tesco. K Mart might be dying a slow death, the result of very bad management for too many years, but even it isn't 'dead'. Pattaya is booming because far more businesses are opening than closing. And, the new businesses are better quality than what they are replacing. Drive down the small sois behind Pattaya Second Road in the Hard rock Hotel area--lots and lots of new, small, nice boutique hotels have replaced old dives. NOVA Express is about to open and it's just the latest one. Several more are under construction--and that's just one small area of town. The new Hooters probably replaced something that wasn't too good. Ditto with the new Bay shopping/dining/entertainment complex going up on Beach Road. Index upgraded, Home Pro added a second store, Chic Republic and Decco came to town. Harbor Mall will add another nice shopping experience. The Base Condo is a great addition to that part of town and will be opening soon, just one of a number of new, successful highrise condo projects. You get the picture. Booming, guy.

[Seizetheday]

What a big pile of steaming elephant poop, VIPinThailand. 'Walmart is closing'. Hmm. Sounds like they are going out of business. Oh, dear. In reality (you remember reality), Walmart is closing a few stores, out of thousands they own, including some concept smaller stores that didn't meet sales expectations. In most cases, shoppers will still have a Walmart not that far from the closed store. And, even though they are closing stores, they are also opening lots of new ones. It's business. Stores open, stores close. Some succeed, some fail. Same with the shops at Tesco. K Mart might be dying a slow death, the result of very bad management for too many years, but even it isn't 'dead'. Pattaya is booming because far more businesses are opening than closing. And, the new businesses are better quality than what they are replacing. Drive down the small sois behind Pattaya Second Road in the Hard rock Hotel area--lots and lots of new, small, nice boutique hotels have replaced old dives. NOVA Express is about to open and it's just the latest one. Several more are under construction--and that's just one small area of town. The new Hooters probably replaced something that wasn't too good. Ditto with the new Bay shopping/dining/entertainment complex going up on Beach Road. Index upgraded, Home Pro added a second store, Chic Republic and Decco came to town. Harbor Mall will add another nice shopping experience. The Base Condo is a great addition to that part of town and will be opening soon, just one of a number of new, successful highrise condo projects. You get the picture. Booming, guy.

The decisions to upgrade Index, Chic and Decco coming to town and building Harbour Mall were made years ago.

It's a fact that there has been a huge drop in visiters from Russia, which hasn't been offset by the increase in Chinese.

[Emster23]

Plenty of zombies here in Pats. Death is not an obstacle. I think in my wandering days I happened to take home a few that were dead but still breathing.

[donnybay]

lot of business closed. who said this place is booming?

walk in Tesco and you see these shops empty.

in USA, Walmart is closing. k mart is gone...

so don't tell me Pattaya is going well with 3 customers a day sipping Lao beer at 2 bucks.

How do you know? your back in Farangland looking for food

[balo]

For the last time Pattaya is not dead! Tesco Lotus is not dead, Big C is not dead , plenty of Russians, Chinese and Europeans around. WS and the bar areas never dies, Even in the smaller sois it's not dead.

[JSixpack]

The decisions to upgrade Index, Chic and Decco coming to town and building Harbour Mall were made years ago.

Of course but not really relevant. Market was analyzed and judged not critically dependent on Russians or Chinese.

The assumption is that Thai business people and publicly held corporations are too stupid to do any market analysis. TVF members seem to think they just ask fortune tellers or astrologers what to do with, say, 5 billion baht (cost of Central). Hee hee!

It's merely one of our old fallacies on the forum reflecting ignorance about how things work. Let it go.

A couple of cases in point. The decision to build 3rd Rd was made long before there any Russians or Chinese or even many Thai tourists. Our farangs inevitably saw no need for it (as there never is) and started bitchin'. It didn't go anywhere! It would never have any stop lights at the intersections. Perpetual chaos! City Hall!

. . . a Grand Prix track . . . . At the moment there is no evidence to suggest that traffic lights will be installed. The fourth solution, and the one most likely to be adopted, is to do sweet nothing! First come first across, and where is the nearest hospital? . . . What on earth is the point of the new Third Road? (Apart from providing the local idiots with a race track.) It ends in a full stop at the Crystal Beach which hardly anyone wants to visit. . . .

--Oliver W. Minto, "What to do about Third Road junctions," Pattaya Mail, Vol. V No.11 Friday 14 March 1997 - 20 March 1997

Yeah, what a flop, Third Road. Too bad you didn't buy property along it, eh? One way or the other I mean.

Then in 2007 and 2008 we were enjoying two good DYING PATTAYA threads

2007: Pattaya's Dead

2008: Is Pattaya Dead Right Now?

Yet for some unfathomable reason Central Pattana PLC foolishly planned and started construction of CentralFestival Pattaya Beach anyway. And opened it to knee-jerk doom prophecies of course by those who couldn't even get its name right.

thaibeachlovers, on 2009-05-29 19:01:26:

Central World is going to fail, just like The Avenues. Anyone stupid enough to build a place that charges Bangkok prices in a small tourist resort town deserves to go bankrupt.

morrobay, on 2009-05-31 11:14:05:

thaibeachlovers is Right On the facts

That was while our Coroners were issuing new Pattaya Death Certificates in the mammoth Pattaya Is Dead Dead Dead. Only four months after CentralFestival Pattaya Beach was condemned to death, despite the prophecies, the new Holiday Inn Pattaya opened. Next year, 7 months after another doom thread, CPN Pattaya Beach Co. Ltd and Hilton Hotels & Resorts also foolishly opened the Hilton Pattaya amid all the ruins! Meanwhile, new beer bar construction on 2nd Rd and around Soi Buakhao flourished apace, oversaturating the market even until today. Paradoxically, such oversaturation contributed to more doom posting.

So let's not worry too much about construction being started at what you think is a foolish time. Maybe there's something you don't know and they do--it's their money, after all.

It's a fact that there has been a huge drop in visiters from Russia, which hasn't been offset by the increase in Chinese.

But Chinese aren't the only ones doing any shopping, you see. Nor do you have any spending figures; or if you do, let's see 'em.

Edited February 11, 2016 by JSixpack

[VIPinthailand]

with 19t debt in the USA, this world is not booming and Pattaya is going down. no way it can go better in the next 3 years.

look around Pattaya, only the center looks packed with people , but the surrounding area is dying.

bars along South jomptien beach are empty. Tesco has empty shelves . big c is empty. just look at the phone and tablet area , it look a deserted place. go computer building at tukom, the last floor is empty and seller are closing their shops. go ask Street seller, they all say the same, people don't buy like before and they need to stay open until 11pm, sometimes until midnight for a last minute sale.

fuel is down, logically prices should go down, price is up.

go walk along Teprasit road, shops stay open just a few months and close again until next sucker come with a new bright idea...

Pattaya is going down. only farangs with pink glasses and who have never been outside bukao will say it s fully packed but in fact Pattaya people are now suffering.

thousand of condo. go pratamnack, these building are empty, no soul. go dark side , no farang anymore.

[JSixpack]

Trollin', trollin', trollin' . . . are we done yet? Mods, close the thread?

[newnative]

Sorry, you're wrong. Tourism in Thailand was actually up 20.4% in 2015 from 2014 with 29.88 million tourists It's probably the one bright spot in the Thai economy. You're right that there was a 45% drop in Russians but that drop was made up by a 3.2% increase from UK, 13.6% increase from USA, 7.7% from Canada, and a whopping 71% increase from the Chinese. Tourists from ASEAN countries were also up 19%. And, tourists from India also increased. The big numbers were 7.93 million Chinese and 7.88 million ASEAN. It's true some projects were started several years ago but I doubt the second Home Pro and the Index upgrade were done for the Russian tourists. And, by the way, there are still plenty of Russians around escaping winter. If things were bad, you would be seeing projects now under construction, such as The Bay, being shuttered. That big new nightclub or dance club or whatever it is called Bone would not be opening. Other than some badly planned condo projects in poor locations, I haven't seen much being shuttered.

[Seizetheday]

There are lies, damned lies and statistics!!!

I thought TAT announced that 5 Chinese tourists spent the same as one Russian.

[thaibeachlovers]

http://www.lk-metro.com/webcam-1/

See for yourself !!!!!!

That will answer properly the question of the topic !

No it won't. LK is a miniscule part of the entertainment zone, so however many are there it means nothing in the overall context of Pattaya as a whole re tourists.

The only indisputable way of telling is to obtain bed occupation numbers for the past few years, and I have no idea how to obtain those, without knowing someone in immigration that collates all the hotel notifications.

Too many different types of accommodation to find that anyway. People stay in rental apartments, hotels, mom and pop guest houses, with friends etc

I think the only real measure to go by is the airport arrivals. And from there people go to all parts of Thailand. I mean you might put Bangkok on your arrival card but of course end up in Patts. So I don't think it will really tell the full story.

You are mistaken. EVERY FOREIGNER must be registered with immigration WHEREVER they stay and if the owner of the place they stay at doesn't notify the authorities, they are liable for a fine. It's all been discussed ad nauseam on different thread in the past.

However, yes, airport arrivals would be one way of telling overall, but this thread is about Pattaya, so not applicable at all.

[thaibeachlovers]

Sorry, you're wrong. Tourism in Thailand was actually up 20.4% in 2015 from 2014 with 29.88 million tourists It's probably the one bright spot in the Thai economy. You're right that there was a 45% drop in Russians but that drop was made up by a 3.2% increase from UK, 13.6% increase from USA, 7.7% from Canada, and a whopping 71% increase from the Chinese. Tourists from ASEAN countries were also up 19%. And, tourists from India also increased. The big numbers were 7.93 million Chinese and 7.88 million ASEAN. It's true some projects were started several years ago but I doubt the second Home Pro and the Index upgrade were done for the Russian tourists. And, by the way, there are still plenty of Russians around escaping winter. If things were bad, you would be seeing projects now under construction, such as The Bay, being shuttered. That big new nightclub or dance club or whatever it is called Bone would not be opening. Other than some badly planned condo projects in poor locations, I haven't seen much being shuttered.

Unfortunately for Pattaya bar owners, Chinese tourists don't patronise farang bar beer establishments.

Bone, or whatever, is more likely to have been built to service Thais than farangs.

While the headline is a general statement about Pattaya it is specific to farangs, and in particular bar patrons. No one can say that Pattaya as a whole is anywhere near dying, given the vast numbers of Bkk Thais that arrive every weekend.

[VIPinthailand]

transit people at the airport are considered long term tourist.... TIT!

[guzzi850m2]

Well some are more optimistic that others.

http://pattayadailynews.com/pattaya-deputy-mayor-on-tourism-industry-in-2016/

[guzzi850m2]

I was on a bike trip to Koh Chang Monday/Tuesday and was surprised by the amount of Chinese tourists over there, many cars on Chinese no plates and it was not small cheap cars.

Not the tour groups we see here in Pattaya but more couples with kids or friends going together.

I been told there is a new highway going though Laos all the way, likely paid by the Chinese for trading.

[tropo]

Sorry, you're wrong. Tourism in Thailand was actually up 20.4% in 2015 from 2014 with 29.88 million tourists It's probably the one bright spot in the Thai economy. You're right that there was a 45% drop in Russians but that drop was made up by a 3.2% increase from UK, 13.6% increase from USA, 7.7% from Canada, and a whopping 71% increase from the Chinese. Tourists from ASEAN countries were also up 19%. And, tourists from India also increased. The big numbers were 7.93 million Chinese and 7.88 million ASEAN. It's true some projects were started several years ago but I doubt the second Home Pro and the Index upgrade were done for the Russian tourists. And, by the way, there are still plenty of Russians around escaping winter. If things were bad, you would be seeing projects now under construction, such as The Bay, being shuttered. That big new nightclub or dance club or whatever it is called Bone would not be opening. Other than some badly planned condo projects in poor locations, I haven't seen much being shuttered.

Unfortunately for Pattaya bar owners, Chinese tourists don't patronise farang bar beer establishments.

Bone, or whatever, is more likely to have been built to service Thais than farangs.

While the headline is a general statement about Pattaya it is specific to farangs, and in particular bar patrons. No one can say that Pattaya as a whole is anywhere near dying, given the vast numbers of Bkk Thais that arrive every weekend.

Looking at the long haul, although not something the current group of sexpats and sex tourists would like, the closing down of bars and gogos is the best thing which could happen. The type of females and their customers which the bar industry attracts don't do Thailand's reputation any favours.

[newnative]

Blast from the past! So cool to read those historical posts--thanks for sharing them! Fun to see those guys were clueless then and are still clueless now. And, for this 'specific farang', the topic is not just about the number of bar patrons, or lack of them.

[tropo]

with 19t debt in the USA, this world is not booming and Pattaya is going down. no way it can go better in the next 3 years.

look around Pattaya, only the center looks packed with people , but the surrounding area is dying.

bars along South jomptien beach are empty. Tesco has empty shelves . big c is empty. just look at the phone and tablet area , it look a deserted place. go computer building at tukom, the last floor is empty and seller are closing their shops. go ask Street seller, they all say the same, people don't buy like before and they need to stay open until 11pm, sometimes until midnight for a last minute sale.

fuel is down, logically prices should go down, price is up.

go walk along Teprasit road, shops stay open just a few months and close again until next sucker come with a new bright idea...

Pattaya is going down. only farangs with pink glasses and who have never been outside bukao will say it s fully packed but in fact Pattaya people are now suffering.

thousand of condo. go pratamnack, these building are empty, no soul. go dark side , no farang anymore.

Only addressing your comments about Tukcom's "deadness"... I believe the main reason for the empty "last floor" (where all the pirated stuff was/is) is a downturn in people purchasing pirated software, movies and music as most people tend to download it these days - and get their music on YouTube.

The computer floors are slowly succumbing to "deadness" due to the proliferation of smart phones and tablets, causing a general downturn in laptop and PC sales. This is a worldwide trend.

I don't believe this has much to do with the general "deadness" that many are witnessing in Pattaya.