Good Point

There was a very well-thought-out letter to the editor about Pattaya's tourist business in the Pattaya Mail this week. (Temporary direct link is here because Pattaya Mail sucks with their archiving addresses.)

Here is the point: If you trade in one $100 a day Farang tourist for ten $10 a day Chinese tourists, you are going to bankrupt the city. The ten Chinese tourists will require 10 times as much water and electricity, take up 10 times as much space on the roads, and create 10 times as much trash and polution, but won't increase revenue (and tax income) at all.

Even worse, with the $100 farang tourist, about $80 of his money goes to small business owners, or individual Thai people. With the ten $10 Chinese tourists, about $100 of their money goes to large hotels, restaurants, and tourist attractions, and none of it to small business owners or individual Thai people.

About 99% of Pattaya's residents rely on the farangs for their their livelihood, while a tiny group of millionaires are the only people who benefit from the Chinese tourists. (And we know how good millionaires are about paying their fair share of upkeep and taxes in Thailand.)

Eventually, Pattaya is going to become bogged down in hundreds of thousands of worthless tourists who contribute absolutely nothing to the local economy, but suck all of its resources dry. The city will collapse under the weight of thousands of tour busses filled with people who literally don't plan on spending a single baht in Pattaya.

Well, I could sit here and try to think of an alternative, but it's hardly worth it. Greedy Thai people make all the decisions in this town, and they are willing to throw the entire city of Pattaya under the wheels in order to line their pockets before the whole place turns into Atlantic City.