Is Pattaya Now More Upmarket Than Phuket by The Pattaya Sleuth

For years Pattaya has always been the poor relation when compared with Phuket and for any reasons it would be hard to argue against this point, but is Pattaya now starting to claw its way to the top? For years Pattaya has been seen in a less than favourable light, “the brothel of Thailand” and other such less than complimentary names but the attempts to clean up the city and bring more quality tourists seem to be working.

I wouldn’t be so naive as to say that the sex industry has totally disappeared in Pattaya, nor would I suggest that Pattaya has the better beaches – it certainly doesn’t but there are other aspects where Pattaya is doing quite favourably. Both cities have quality condos being constructed and there is perhaps an oversupply in both areas but Pattaya has the large Chinese market and has managed to retain the higher end Russian market so demand does exist – just perhaps not at the levels that developers and real estate agents would like.

It is perhaps these visitors that are driving the market in Pattaya and making the place become increasingly upmarket. It is the goods and services that are required so the shops and recreational activities have to adapt to meet the demand. The new Terminal 21 shopping centre will be opening soon and you can bet your bottom dollar that it won’t be filled with cheap tourist shops but designer label stores.

Full story: http://www.inspirepattaya.com/lifestyle/pattaya-now-upmarket-phuket-pattaya-sleuth/

-- Inspire Pattaya 2016-05-14

Pattaya will always be busy & have tourists from wherever to do what ever

But comparing beaches, restaurants etc. Phuket wins IMO

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Both are major tourist resorts, and as so have their problems and good points.

I think that the powers that be might like it to get that way.

Regards more upmarket than Phuket just comparing Pattaya news clips to Phuket's tells me it isn't.

Pattaya will always be busy & have tourists from wherever to do what ever

But comparing beaches, restaurants etc. Phuket wins IMO

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Phuket wins on the beaches agreed, but not on the restaurants, no way, the choices are much much bigger in fun town and generally cheaper too.

I wonder how many times over the last umpteen decades I have read/heard this ?

Pattaya is the greatest city in the world.

But Phuket is more upmarket in most ways.

The Phuket restaurants charge about double on average for the same thing you get in Pattaya. But the restaurant will generally be cleaner, have a better decor, there will be less spelling mistakes on the menu and the staff are usually better trained.

The gogo experience in Phuket doesn't even come close to the Pattaya experience. A beer in a Pattaya gogo, from 79baht, in Phuket about 300 baht. In Pattaya forty or fifty girls with heavenly bodies and big smiles dancing naked with very little hassling of the drinkers if they are not interested. In Phuket, maybe twenty angrier, clothed girls with a couple of older ones who insert live animals into themselves and a constant hassle for lady drinks. Pattaya gogos have a heavenly feel while Phuket is about degradation.

Phuket is better for a holiday, Pattaya is better to live IMO.

I am off to Phuket next week to meet a mate who arrived there yesterday. He couldn't believe the amount of deconstruction that had been carried out on the illegal buildings on the beach. Apparently the army are starting in Pattaya next month. The west side of walking street is illegally built on the beach.

I prey to God they don't knock it all down.

Edited May 15, 201610 yr by Roomuck

I have lived in north Pattaya & Naklua for over 11 years (work 20 minutes away). True, the beaches are nicer in Phuket...but when looking out my rented condo onto Pattaya Bay or Wongamat Beach with the islands in the distance, the view is just as beautiful as a seaside view in Phuket. (Note: how many people really go in the sea to swim? Most of us swim in the pool and look at the sea.) If one chooses NOT to drive on the congested, unpredictable streets of Pattaya, it is so easy to hop on a songtaew for 10 baht & avoid driving in the city; where as in Phuket there is not such an easy kind of public transportation. (Note: The tuk-tuk mafia drivers in Phuket over price everyone-bargaining is exhausting.) It is definitely more expensive living or visiting Phuket; whereas, you have all kinds of choices to meet ones budget in Pattaya. Most of the Thai workers in Pattaya are from north Thailand or Isaan; whereas the locals in Phuket are from south Thailand- not as friendly and more aggressive. With access to Central shopping center and in the future, Terminal 21- one does not need to go to BKK for purchasing those special items. Easy to take a public bus or drive to Bangkok or to the airport from Pattaya; whereas, in Phuket, you have to fly out or have a long hectic drive to BKK. True, Pattaya has many sois that have bars to entertain the horny or lonely single male, but one can walk around Pattaya and never come across these areas. Pattaya is like surfing the TV channels with your remote- you pick and choose what you desire: rated G;PG13;or R entertainment. Crime in both tourist cities is always in the news; yet, if you are street-wise and not roaming alone at night in deserted areas, you will be safe as in any city around the world. (I work so have to go to bed at 10pm, never been robbed or attacked by ladyboys-lol)

The sad thing about Pattaya, is that the city infrastructure is not keeping up with its increasing number of tourists, package tour buses and condos mushrooming all over the place-- aesthetically it is an ugly city with crumbling, narrow sidewalks, lack of greenery, and always unfinished city or utility projects (underground pipes-dug up sidewalks-hanging wires-a missing grate cover-pile of dirt or broken concrete laying around). The place looks attractive in the travel brochures but once you start walking around in the city (which the city officials most likely do not) you notice all the broken debris and litter laying around.

I would hardly claim Pattaya more "upmarket" due to Russian and Chinese tourists. Lived both places, both have pluses and minuses. And both are in dire need of reform that will never happen.

Property in Phuket is without doubt more upmarket than Pattaya, there are many listings for houses over 100 million Baht, here in Pattaya there are hardly any.

Edited May 15, 201610 yr by Rimmer

Better beaches??? If you mean that open sewer they call Pattaya Bay you are so waaaay off the mark....Pattaya is and will always be at the wrong end of the stick....just accept it for what it is....a hole with about 34,000 holes working in and around the joint.....sex paradise for most of the world....can't sugar coat it...and why would you....just enjoy the moment????

Edited May 15, 201610 yr by chicowoodduck

Pattaya is the greatest city in the world.

But Phuket is more upmarket in most ways.

The Phuket restaurants charge about double on average for the same thing you get in Pattaya. But the restaurant will generally be cleaner, have a better decor, there will be less spelling mistakes on the menu and the staff are usually better trained.

The gogo experience in Phuket doesn't even come close to the Pattaya experience. A beer in a Pattaya gogo, from 79baht, in Phuket about 300 baht. In Pattaya forty or fifty girls with heavenly bodies and big smiles dancing naked with very little hassling of the drinkers if they are not interested. In Phuket, maybe twenty angrier, clothed girls with a couple of older ones who insert live animals into themselves and a constant hassle for lady drinks. Pattaya gogos have a heavenly feel while Phuket is about degradation.

Phuket is better for a holiday, Pattaya is better to live IMO.

I am off to Phuket next week to meet a mate who arrived there yesterday. He couldn't believe the amount of deconstruction that had been carried out on the illegal buildings on the beach. Apparently the army are starting in Pattaya next month. The west side of walking street is illegally built on the beach.

I prey to God they don't knock it all down.

"Phuket is better for a holiday, Pattaya is better to live IMO."

Most of what gets the Pattaya-bashers excited is tourist oriented places. If you live here, unless you are drawn to that sort of thing, it's quite easy to go about your life without ever having to deal with it. Aside from occasional morning walks along the beach or using Beach Road to drive south from Central Festival or Pattaya Nua, I never have any reason to be in that part of town. Can't recall when I was last on Walking Street.

I was in Phuket once, long before the Tsunami. Can't recall anything about the place that would make me want to return, but then I was there for only a few days as a tourist and, among other things, everything seemed to be more expensive than in Pattaya including local transport. I'd say if I came to Pattaya as a tourist for a few days and never went anywhere other than the city beach area and the bars, I'd not be favorably impressed either. As a resident I'm quite happy here, especially once the high season ends, although Pattaya never seems to slow down during the low season to the extent it did many years ago.

Of course many of the Pattaya-bashers also claim they would never come here, which makes one wonder how they have such detailed knowledge on the subject.

Edited May 15, 201610 yr by Suradit69

Better beaches??? If you mean that open sewer they call Pattaya Bay you are so waaaay off the mark....Pattaya is and will always be at the wrong end of the stick....just accept it for what it is....a hole with about 34,000 holes working in and around the joint.....sex paradise for most of the world....can't sugar coat it...and why would you....just enjoy the moment????

So far, nobody has posted a claim that Pattaya's beaches are better than Phuket's and several have stated that Phuket beaches trump Pattaya's.

But don't let that stop you.

More likely Phuket has sank to the same level. Called globalization, I seem to remember, everything turning into same old gray mush.

Both a great cities , if you take out all the human fleas that attach themselves to tourist, ,

Sameasiteverwas.....

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/911313-pattaya-v-hua-hin/#entry10657996

Pattaya "more upmarket"?? Not hardly. However, when it comes to crime against tourists, thieving cabbies & beach vendors, and sleazy sex tourists, Phuket is becoming more and more like Pattaya.

Pattaya is the greatest city in the world.

I'm guessing you haven't travelled much.

Pattaya is fine as it is/was. I just wish they'd leave it be.

Sadly Pattaya seems always to be the 'Lab Rat' in the quest of clueless regime after regime, for attracting the mythical 'Quality Tourists' Thailand seems to think it deserves and yearns for, at the expense of all else.

While some of the new malls and recent developments may have indeed boosted the city (though none seem to have set the tourism world on fire), they don't want to go too far and create some inhuman sterile 5*Hotel/Shopping Mall/Condominium bloc of concrete by the sea at the expense of the smaller things which bring back tourists year after year.

They must retain the 'human' side of Pattaya.

That soi 7 and 8 and the much maligned beer bars seem to be just about clinging on is encouraging and shows that there is some resistance to the 'gentrification' of Pattaya.

I can't think of any tourist destination in the World which is truly 'upmarket' outside of St Tropez, and one or two Alpine ski resorts though even these traditional 'high end' places, especially the French Riviera, even Barbados, The Seychelles, Mauritius etc. are now filling up with 'lower budget' options and catering to 'budget minded' tourists'.

I must admit to raising a thoughtful eyebrow when I overheard a distinctly 'of the people' lady in a pub telling her equally 'of the people' Shell-Suit clad pal how she had (F****g booked the family for Barbados as casually as it had been 'Marbella' or 'Benidorm'.

One shudders.....

Only the Thais and their total lack or a grasp on reality seem stuck on this 'Quality Tourist' mindset/illusion.

Pattaya is fine as it is/was. I just wish they'd leave it be.

Sadly Pattaya seems always to be the 'Lab Rat' in the quest of clueless regime after regime, for attracting the mythical 'Quality Tourists' Thailand seems to think it deserves and yearns for, at the expense of all else.

While some of the new malls and recent developments may have indeed boosted the city (though none seem to have set the tourism world on fire), they don't want to go too far and create some inhuman sterile 5*Hotel/Shopping Mall/Condominium bloc of concrete by the sea at the expense of the smaller things which bring back tourists year after year.

They must retain the 'human' side of Pattaya.

That soi 7 and 8 and the much maligned beer bars seem to be just about clinging on is encouraging and shows that there is some resistance to the 'gentrification' of Pattaya.

I can't think of any tourist destination in the World which is truly 'upmarket' outside of St Tropez, and one or two Alpine ski resorts though even these traditional 'high end' places, especially the French Riviera, even Barbados, The Seychelles, Mauritius etc. are now filling up with 'lower budget' options and catering to 'budget minded' tourists'.

I must admit to raising a thoughtful eyebrow when I overheard a distinctly 'of the people' lady in a pub telling her equally 'of the people' Shell-Suit clad pal how she had (F****g booked the family for Barbados as casually as it had been 'Marbella' or 'Benidorm'.

One shudders.....

Only the Thais and their total lack or a grasp on reality seem stuck on this 'Quality Tourist' mindset/illusion.

Have to say, nothing much upmarket about the French Rivera, Especially St Tropez....I lived there for many years, Lots of Crime and undeseriables frequent there.

Only UpMarket place I found was "Monaco" which was nice to visit but not to live....

I don't think there is anything upmarket about Thailand..ANYWHERE....

But that's my views....

Fair points mate.

Last time we were in the Riviera we were constantly harassed by streams of Africans flogging tourist tat....with varying degrees of aggression. We also met many people who had been victims of petty crime there too.....

Upmarket isn't a term I would have applied to either! ???

Neither place is 'upmarket' and never will be. Both places are overbuilt and over commercialized. Phuket is way over priced and is not worth the cost of hotels, food or entertainment. It will eventually die a natural death. Pattaya is similar but there are things that are affordable and you can avoid the tourists by simply not going where they go. As far as living, if you have to choose, Pattaya is the place. However, I would never choose to live either place. Neither is representative of the Thailand experience. Almost every large tourist area in Thailand has been ruined by greedy developers and a lack of regulation. Phuket hasn't figured how how to reinvent itself. Pattaya in 10 years will be devoid of Westerners but continue to attract the Chinese and Bangkok Thais. Most of the Western bar areas will fade away due to lack of business. The smart owners are selling now and those that buy are making a bad investment.

pattaya, they are building more and more shopping mall, and then they wonder why the quality family tourists still dont want to come.

Do they forget that pattaya is fulfilled with criminals, ladyboy, drug dealers and hookers? Dont they see the ocean is an open toilet?

There are some very nice beach areas with small family run hotels in Thailand that cater mostly to Thais that will be able to sustain themselves for the immediate future. The thing that kills places is when they try and get mass tourism in their area. It destroys everything that makes a place unique and a joy to return to. I know some of these places in Thailand but do not advertise them lest they go the same route as Pattaya, Phuket, Hua Hin etc. The greedy developers, large hotel chains and corruption have turned both Phuket and Pattaya into polluted hubs. They have become too much like the places we left . The truly upmarket places in the World are along the Southern California Pacific Coast and some small Caribbean Islands that boast private hideaways at big prices. They don't advertise because they are exclusive. The truly wealthy seldom come to Thailand anymore.

Edited May 15, 201610 yr by Thaidream

A baiting troll post has been remove

Pattaya is the greatest city in the world.

I'm guessing you haven't travelled much.

Any suggestions then?

Ps.I don't like the cold, fat chicks or working.

No Phuket is more upmarket of the two. That said I am currently in Nha Trang, Vietnam.

The beach is wider, and clean, while the water is not Tahiti/Bora Bora crystal it is cleaner

than the waters of Thailand. The roadways are much cleaner than Thailand, prices are

substantially cheaper for hotels and restaurants, drinking. All the cabs had working meters

and used them. For the most part there are wide sidewalks (unfortunately used somewhat for

scooter parking) There is no hugely visible prostitution/red light district although I am sure like

every place else there is an industry. Not nearly the shopping availability or apartment rental

availability but that is about it. Thailand better get its act together. Thailand's missing Russian

tourists are here. So while Phuket is more upscale than Pattaya, and they get far more

tourists than Vietnam/Nha Trang if you are taking a family/couples vacation Nha Trang is a far

far better option.

Better beaches??? If you mean that open sewer they call Pattaya Bay you are so waaaay off the mark....Pattaya is and will always be at the wrong end of the stick....just accept it for what it is....a hole with about 34,000 holes working in and around the joint.....sex paradise for most of the world....can't sugar coat it...and why would you....just enjoy the moment????

"sex paradise for most of the world....can't sugar coat it...and why would you....just enjoy the moment"

Assuming you spend any time in Pattaya, I guess we know where that time is spent enjoying the moment. And I bet if you've ever been to Amsterdam enjoying the moment. it didn't involve the Rijksmuseum.

Not comparing Pattaya to Amsterdam, but wherever someone goes, his focus tends to be based on his personal interests.

I wouldn’t be so naive as to say that the sex industry has totally disappeared in Pattaya

Sad marketing write-up article with nonsense statements such as these... very far from reality.

who cares about what is more upmarket, especially as currently the climate couldnt be more bad for real estate and other farang-oriented business.

I wonder how many times over the last umpteen decades I have read/heard this ?

Well mate , i remember back on 79, i had been to Phuket and then came to patts and the difference, to hell with it, im off to bed.