Going Down: Businesses on Phuket’s famed Bangla Rd suffer as clientele dries up

[Ulic]

Has rent for smaller venues dropped, has the price of beer dropped, has the price of

bar-fines dropped ? Has the amount in police/government officials payoffs decreased ?

My guess is no to all of the above so there must be no problem with business.

Everybody wants everyone else to lower there prices to save money while they maintain

or increase prices. Look at the recent government proposal to charge tourists 360 baht

on every entry to (fatten government officials bank accounts) clean tourist sites. (At which

they already pay a "special" Farang" rate already.) The TAT will soon learn, when the

camels back is broken it is broken. People are creatures of habit. If they have a good

time, feel they are getting good value, they will return. You can turn the screws for some

time after they are hooked but at a point you will loose the clientele. Once you loose

someone they do not come back, often ever. And they tell everyone of the new place

they have discovered. I really do think Thailand has reached that point. The only rapidly

expanding market is China. With there proximity, short junkets, and hard bargaining

package tour operators it will be tough for many Thai tourist business.

Edited January 23, 2016 by Ulic

[realenglish1]

Well you wanted quality tourists Now you have them !!!! The TOT has been successful in increasing the number or tourist coming to Thailand but a hard learned lesson comes with it

"Make sure your tourists are coming with money " In this case Its not the Chinese tourist that has money to burn like western and Russian tourists do

Edited January 23, 2016 by realenglish1

[DanceAllNight]

Shame. Used to be such a good place too.

[lvr181]

I thought "going down" was the business? Damn, have I misunderstood?

[torpedo1970]

Nah, this cant be true.

TAT have told us that the numbers are up up and up..... so there, this must be wrong.....

Thainess

[lkv]

Having had a big chunk of their savings vanish (see stock markets in China recently and slower economic growth), pray that those middle class Chinese still budget a tour holiday this year, at least you will hopefully get an extra 1,000 baht from them on the VOA. For the ones that come.

Edited January 23, 2016 by lkv

[spidermike007]

My heart absolutely bleeds. Most bars were making 3 million baht per month, and most music venues were making 10 million baht per month before. We never thought anything would change. We thought we could charge 250 baht for ladies drinks, and ridiculous cover charges, and bar fines of 600-1200 baht. We thought the girls could charge 2000-4000 baht and nobody would question it. We thought we could offer an inferior product, for crazy prices, and nobody would question it.

Hopefully, some of these operators put some of that insane income away for a rainy day, such as now.

The reality is, that Bangla Road is one of the true blight zones, on Planet Earth. It is such an awful, desperate, overpriced place. Some of us are thrilled that those businesses are hurting. They never provided much of a service to begin with, and they charged stupid prices for it. So what if they are hurting? They themselves are part of the cause, for that local problem.

Western tourists are starting to see all of the issues that Thailand has. There have been countless reports on TV, and in the news, and online. About the bungling of the murder trials. About the scams. About the ineffective police. About the traffic fatalities. About the arrests for simple things such as liking a post on Facebook, and the false arrests based on trumped up LM charges. Tourists hate this kind of thing. The word gets around. The only tourism sector that is growing in Thailand is the Chinese sector. And the Chinese are accustomed to disgusting politicians, who do not have the public interest at heart. They don't seem to really care. But, they are spending alot less. And the Chinese are not punters, so the bar business, the (special) massage business, the soapies, the escorts, the go-go bars, and that entire industry is dying a slow death, nationwide.

The drop has been stunning. Restaurants, bars, massage shops, hotels, travel operators, tour guides, taxis, van services, airlines, etc. It is felt all the way on down the line. And who is ultimately to blame for the drop in Thai tourism nationwide? Prawit and Prayuth. That is who. They have been doing everything in their power to sabotage tourism. Everything. So, eat your sour grapes. You do not have our compassion on this one. I feel for the local people who are suffering. But, I do not feel for the Bangla millionaires, nor for the government. They are to blame.

Edited January 23, 2016 by spidermike007

[freedom4life]

Way too overdeveloped for tourists..bound to recede one of these days. Chinese don't like to spend anyway..

[Thaidream]

I see it everywhere I go. Western tourism is down and Asian tourism is up. However, the loss of Western tourists means loss of big revenue in the entertainment districts. In addition, the oil and gas people just do not come like before due to less of them and hassles with Visas. The response of the entertainment owners has been to increase prices which is not going to work. I went into on place last week where a small beer last year was 90 Baht and now 120 Baht. No real reason to increase this much. I will not be back and others have the same thought. You can only gouge so much and then the public votes with its feet. The glory days in the entertainment business are gone and I doubt ever coming back. The new brand of tourist from Asian doesn't want it and the old hands are going to other places where the prices are lower and the fun is real. It appears that the current bar owners in Thailand have no real idea on how to run a business.

[biplanebluey]

Thais need to learn to treat tourists as customers , we do not appreciate being ripped off robbed and cheated when we go on vacation. You h have the Chinese good luck with that, only chinese benefit .

OR KILLED!!!!!!!!

[tomwct]

I guess the word has finally sunk in that Phuket is a DUMP! I've lived in Thailand for 13 years and I know I never want to

visit! Phuket is known throughout the world as a place to get Ripped Off!

[SPB65]

It seems they can't rely on the Chinese tourists like the good old fashioned western male pleasure seekers and you can only rip people off for so long. Thailand's "entertainment industry" has had an exceptionally good run but it all seems incredibly tired and jaded now, or maybe that's just me.

[BangkokKen]

Thing is;

Thai government is quite happy to get rid of Westerners as well as the 'dirty business' they patron.

They only tolerated it because they had no choice.

Now with Chinese; they have the perfect tourists: No prostitution; no alcohol, no drugs; no overstay; etc...

[Khon Kaen Dave]

When i had my bar on the darkside,there was a shop across the road that sold air con units.His rent was 30,000

a month.I know this because he came and did some work on mine.One day his landlord put up his rent to 60,000,just like that

no warning.The guy asked him if he would do deal at 45,000 until business improved.The land lord refused.Two weeks later

the aircon guy moved his shop 8 shops up the road at an agreed rent of 25,000.This was two years ago.The original

shop the guy had is still empty!Saving face but losing 30,000 a month.Good,Thai business sense??????I just cant understand the reqsoning

of it.

KKD

[12DrinkMore]

down to about B540,000 per day,” he added.

Mr Somphoch noted that PEBA members account for 500 businesses.

An average of just 1,000 Baht/day income. Down from 3,000 Baht.

That is one helluva drop.

If that is true and continues, and I can see no reason why business should now pick up, then there will be a lot of businesses closing and a lot of vacant property. Maybe the inconceivable could happen?....

Rents might drop to an affordable level.....

[someonelovesyou]

The record number tourists are Chinese tour groups. They don't spend any money in Thailand so that is just bummer. I remember that a teacher at prince of Songkla university where I was a student once said "we don't need you westerner tourists when we have Russians and Chinese." Hope that she is happy now.

Seems an odd thing to say, since I've never met a Thai that doesn't consider Russians to be "westerners".

[BangkokKen]

Nah, this cant be true.

TAT have told us that the numbers are up up and up..... so there, this must be wrong.....

Thainess

Have you been to Don Muang lately?

You think you are in Beijin.

The place is packed with Chinese.

Money is pouring in big time; just going into different hands.

[Nobb]

How many deaths and robberies does it take to hurt Phuket and Thailand. Other more safer to go and do not have to get beaten by bouncer or robbed by drug users. And not killed by the sex offenders and other laborers in Thailand who come to this country to work with no value of human life. No traveler in there right mind wants this and the rest of the world is tired of it.

[Thaidream]

Saving face in Thailand is so important that a person would rather lose a steady form of income than lower the price. It is the same with Thais selling property. they just will not lower the price and will hold it forever until they get their price or it never gets sold.. Complete nonsense and poor business. After so much time in Thailand, I simply cannot understand this stubbornness. I have even tried showing Thais on paper with actual figures showing how much is being lost over the years and they still ignore it. If I owned an entertainment venue right now, I would sell it as quickly as possible.

[phuketandsee]

One must applaud the creativity of the PN headline writers. This one comes shortly after (pun intended) "Rear Entry To Stay" (thanks be for that).

Edited January 23, 2016 by phuketandsee

[Spock]

A single entry visa from the Thai embassy in Australia was and still is $A45. A multiple entry visa used to cost $45 for each extra entry. Now the multiple entry visa cost a flat $A225 with the same 6 months validity. No way will I be getting one of those for my annual 4 month visit to the region. I will spend more time elsewhere. Plus you need to be able to show $A8000 or 200000 baht in a bank account. The country is actively discouraging genuine tourists.

[spidermike007]

When i had my bar on the darkside,there was a shop across the road that sold air con units.His rent was 30,000

a month.I know this because he came and did some work on mine.One day his landlord put up his rent to 60,000,just like that

no warning.The guy asked him if he would do deal at 45,000 until business improved.The land lord refused.Two weeks later

the aircon guy moved his shop 8 shops up the road at an agreed rent of 25,000.This was two years ago.The original

shop the guy had is still empty!Saving face but losing 30,000 a month.Good,Thai business sense??????I just cant understand the reqsoning

of it.

KKD

More than likely, the shop was owned by a newly rich guy, who has no business training, nor logic or common sense. He probably did not run the numbers. He assumed everybody wanted to rent his shop. He assumed the same thing alot of simple minded people do, and that is that the economy only goes up. That it never corrects, or goes down. Never. So, now he is eating his sour grapes. He is sitting with an empty shop. He has lost hundreds of thousands of baht, due to an extraordinary lack of intelligence, and common sense, and a degree of arrogance that is not in correlation to the substance of the man.

One can only hope more of this starts to happen. We learn alot from hardship. It is a great teacher.

In the real world, rents rarely go up 100% overnight, without warning. That happens on other planets. Yes, that happens on Planet Thailandia.

[henry15]

Chinese and other Asian tourists ARE big spenders, only not in bars, beergardens amd similar, and they stay in 5 star hotels. People who ever stayed there, will confirm that.

They are shopoholics in places like King Power. Theire tourcompany take them to selected restaurants.

Like somebody wrote: the Chinese and Asian tourists have different needs than Westerners. Its to the Thai SME's in the Leisure industry, to find out what that needs are. Anyhow its not Beerbars,and sleezy hookerbars.

And maybe it will be a good idea for some of you to join a Thai tourgroup to Korea, Japan or Singapore. Than you will realize that Asians have a totally different idea about spending a holliday's than Westerners.

[GoNavy]

When i first arrived in 2005 I was amazed at the hustle and bustle of tourists, night-clubs, strip clubs, cost, and the fun fun fun. I'm older now and thank gawd do not go after such fun anymore. As I recall, then a Heineken beer was somewhere around 75 cents on Jomtien Beach. Now it is over $2 and closer to $3. Now the 'know it alls' decided to take umbrellas and chairs off the beach for the al natural look. Is Immigration easier or harder to get in and extend? Hoops higher or lower to jump? Different entertainment areas raised prices out of line with labor, rent and profit. Throw in bad press on murders, rape, assaults, thievery to say nothing of the scams by beach enterprises. More important to close down bars then to secure safety of the beach after dark. Pattaya for one has more traffic and harder to move around.

[cumgranosalum]

I guess the same will apply to Pattaya as well?

[stoffel45]

Phuket and Pattaya - birds of a feather.

Whether it's Bangla or Walking Street the area is choked with literally thousands and thousands of tourists. They walk down the road, their cameras go click click click. And they walk out the other end.

They very rarely buy anything - they look and look - take selfies endlessly and that's it.

High volume - low value/spending tourists are death to any resort - no matter where. Mega-huge fleets of coaches block the approaches to - well - everywhere, roads too tight to turn, these great diesel belching slugs make life unpleasant for everyone.

But TAT can say, "Numbers Up again - an extra 1.6 million Chinese tourists this year.

Sometimes the "Throng" will take a left into a bar - a hundred will follow without thinking. Inside they photograph until the "bouncers" ask them to leave. None of the "Throng" wants to understand. Eventually the music stops and the stage is empty. Exit the "Throng". In the 20 minutes of prime time they were in the bar - business just stopped. The "Throng" never buys.

Soon the word gets round Bangla and Walking Street are full of Chinese groups. End of.

The other "new tourists" are Indians. They don't like to spend either.

So yes, plenty of people - but no buyers from these groups.

[jesimps]

Nothing could be better than to send these former prostitutes back to their villages and start building up their future once and for all, and at the same time these low income lazy doers should return back to their home countries as well.

No wonder why this place has become a stinking pig.

Aren't you just a little ray of sunshine. Your world must be a very sad place to live.

He's got the right name "Shroud". Very appropriate.

The things you'd like to see gone are what made this country a great tourist destination. As soon as the Thais admit this and stop poncing about with the Chinese tightwads the better.

Also, ban bargirls from using facebook at work, maybe then they'd start attracting more farang. Reduce the price of drinks too, goes without saying.

[Thunderbirds20]

Perhaps it is time to make tourists from Western countries feel welcome again. They spend money. But now, with record numbers of the world's least desirable tourists, .. namely Russian and Chinese, who do not spend money in Thai businesses, you are starting to see the effects of this disastrous strategy.

why Thailand welcomes with special treatment when the rest of the world routinely denies then Visas is beyond me. They only come here because it is easy for them, .. nice weather, ... beaches, .... but they do not respect or care about anything Thai, not even the Thai people. You can go virtually anywhere in Thailand and find Westerners, assimilated in to the Thai culture, but Russians only go to your best beach resorts. You never see a Russian in Isaan, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Lampang, Nakhon Sawan, Phrae, Loei, .... but there are westerners!

Wake up Thailand. Rid yourselves of these disrespectful, rude, demanding and dirty people.

[fakser]

The greedy fools brought it on themselves. I saw it coming.

I was in Phuket-Pathong last September and was astonished from everything overpriced.

A cut of fruits (Mango, water melon, pineapple), 60-100 baht.

A short ride, even 50 meter with a tuk-tuk, 200 baht.

The food without comparison to Bangkok or other parts of Thailand.

The stupid mafia of the tok-tuk force them to keep these outrageous prices and you can see them standing idle by the curbs because few pay them these price.

They shot themselves in the leg and now they are whyning.

let them eat their own dish.

[Peterphuket]

Anybody surprised??

Yeh, maybe the officials, but that is in every country the same, and it is never there fault, there are always circumstances where they, the officials, do not know about, or do not want to know.

It will never change.