After a dismal 2006 tourist season, the number of tourist arrivals appears to be up in 2007 by about 10% over the previous year, but that falls below the Tourism Authority of Thailand's expectations.
I would suspect that most of the year-to-year improvement comes from an increase in Asian tourists in Pattaya. Unfortunately, these are package tourists who never frequent attractions or venues or local businesses which are not part of their rigidly-orchestrated travel schedule. These type of tourists spend very little money outside of the initial cost of their travel package, and provide very little benefit to the small businesses which represent, I would guess, about three-quarters of Pattaya's economic activity.
It's simple really: For most people in Pattaya, one 40,000-baht-per-week Caucasian sex tourist is better than forty 1,000-baht-per-week Asian package tourists.
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Hi. I just heard that Beach Road in Pattaya has just been closed for vehicle traffic. What's going on with that? What are the plans there? It that the new walking street that people have been talking about?
-Gene
No idea. I haven't been on Beach Road in a few weeks. It might have been closed just for New Year's Eve.
Guess you have been out of touch with the news. Beach road is going to be closed permanently due to excessive traffic, motorbike rentals blocking the way and abuse by baht buses and other vehicles generally.
Wow. That seems like a bad idea: Beach Road is too far away from Second Road to be a reasonable distance to walk for many people (about 300-plus meters in places).
Does that mean that all of the sois between second and beach road are closed too? Or when you get to the end of them, do you do a U-turn?
Must have been something very recent if that is the case, because Willie was coming from Beach Road when he had his accident on the night of December 30th/31st.
If they are closing Beach Road permanently due to traffic, they really need to consider some form of "closed system" transportation such as baht busses to get people up and down the road, and to and from the road.
The scheme was to be Friday to Sunday but apparently has (sensibly) been 'postponed,' Thai speak for cancelled.
Yes JD: Stan told me the same thing just a few minutes ago. He said that they tried to make Second Road a two-way road, which caused total chaos... and the police were handing out tickets to anyone who drove on the "wrong side" of the road.
Indeed. LBFM's are well worth the price/time/effort of a trip.
Don´t forget the eastern europeans in your list especially russians.
Hey i have also a Pattaya Blog but its in German i wanted to ask if you could add me in your friends list, doing an link exchange.
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