Satiated Parrot wrote:Nonsense. I go to Thailand with my wife regularly and don't go near the bargirls and still have a good time.

Hotels in Malaysia are relatively expensive, drinks are expensive, local food is good and cheap but the western food sucks and is overpriced, and the places have no vibe whatsoever. Penang, even the tourist beaches, closes down at about 8.

western food sucks big time even in thailand and is priced as much as in the West, but to each his own maybe you're not a connaisseur ...

yeah Batu Ferringhi is not on par with Samui or Hua Hin but it's never been famous as a nightlife destination, i mean the whole country is muslim despite Penang being a chinese enclave ... of course there's no vibe malaysia is not a place for that kind of things and neither is Java or Sumatra or Mindanao or malaysian Borneo, but family tourists are more than happy the way it is.

hotels are a bit more expensive but overall in malaysia what you get is better than in thailand, the whole place is kept better, cleaner, everything works, crime is minimal, and scams are nowhere as bad as in thailand.

i mean it's a welcoming place, they don't see tourists as poor suckers to be ripped off, you don't see the same greedyness, most of the prices are fixed, no bargaining needed.

yeah drinks are incredibly expensive but because of this there are not the usual crowds of drunks and weirdos you see everywhere else.

so, all in all it's a decent alternative for some, not for everyone of course.

but if there were bargirls in malaysia i would definitely think about relocating there, no matter if a beer costs an arm and a leg, i don't drink too much anyway, but i fuck a lot, it's all a matter of priorities, the hookers you see in Penang are a disaster and the rates in massage parlours are ridicolous ... good for a few days but then i have to go to greener pastures, in any case i've seen chinese whores in Borneo available for 50$ so it's not so bad if you know where to look, but it can't compete with thailand/cambo/philippines.

Soi Dog wrote:You think whoremongering is still the reason so many millions of people travel to Thailand? That is preposterous. Speak for yourself. Most others go for the weather, beaches, shopping and the relaxed atmosphere...among other things. If you think the majority of Russians only swill beer outside of a 7-Eleven, then your view must be based upon the street corner view from your 300 Baht per day rental room in Pattaya and nothing else. Both the Russians and Chinese spend vast amounts of money there. The Asian trade in goods and tourism will soon dwarf what the Europeans/Yanks/Aussies combined have ever produced. That trend is unstoppable.

for SOME places in thailand, yes whore mongers are the only reasons these places are still in business, you're totally downplaying the sex industry.

if the russians spend so much why every thai is pissed at them for being cheap charlies ?
if what you say is true the russkies should be welcomed with open arms everywhere now just as they do with koreans and japanese.

chinese spending a lot ? it depends, some do, but most don't as far as i've seen, of course this will change in the future but at the moment i'm not impressed by their spending power and neither are the Thais.

if the trend is unstoppable how come tourism is going down in thailand while it's booming anywhere else in south east asia ?

phuketrichard wrote:tourists will come as they love Thailand.

the ones that come for the girls are a very small minority
here in Phuket many Arabs, Indians, Russians Families an couples
not the single guys looking for a "date"

Those that come to Thailand will, they will not switch to Cambodia, which is an add on country- not a destination, so can see numbers there dropping
As to the thai's, with uncertainty about the future, they are holding on to their $$ and not spending it

As for the german guy, he should have know better than to go at three thai kids late at night. ( Not saying it was his fault)
Anyone that believes the myth that Thai's are Jai Yen ( cool heart) has never been to Thailand.

Thailand has bounced back from;

SARS
Bird Flue
Tsunami
Countless coups
this will pass as well an in fact its better/safer now than pre coup

Phuket has never been representative of the whole of thailand, it's a case apart.

agree that the situation will balance itself due to supply/demand but my forecast is negative, you're wearing a thick pair of rosy glasses in my opinion, anyone investing in thailand now is risking to be part of a giant Ponzi scheme .. housing prices are ridicolous now especially in Phuket and sooner or later the bubble will explode, i mean the whole country will explode, there are good reason if they had to give power to the army rather than launch new elections, typical banana republic totally fucked up from top to bottom.

too much modding at thai visa.
this is a good place to have your say!
555

Drifter wrote:f the trend is unstoppable how come tourism is going down in thailand while it's booming anywhere else in south east asia ?

As I said a while back, there have always been and always will be cycles and dips in tourism numbers based on many factors, both global and domestic. Don't mistake a snap shot of a couple of months in the low season with overall long term trends, which show the Thailand tourism industry is strong and resilient and growing.

As for "the rest of SE Asia visitor numbers still booming"... where are you getting your statistics? Here is a link to the official government numbers for Singapore each year:

https://www.stb.gov.sg/statistics-and-m ... ivals.aspx

The numbers clearly show a huge drop for the first 5 months of 2014 vs the first 5 months of 2013. So it's not just Thailand seeing a decline. Tourist numbers should begin to improve in the whole region as the high season starts, as long as fuel prices remain constant and no additional, major geopolitical crises erupt.

Soi Dog wrote:

Drifter wrote:f the trend is unstoppable how come tourism is going down in thailand while it's booming anywhere else in south east asia ?

As I said a while back, there have always been and always will be cycles and dips in tourism numbers based on many factors, both global and domestic. Don't mistake a snap shot of a couple of months in the low season with overall long term trends, which show the Thailand tourism industry is strong and resilient and growing.

As for "the rest of SE Asia visitor numbers still booming"... where are you getting your statistics? Here is a link to the official government numbers for Singapore each year:

https://www.stb.gov.sg/statistics-and-m ... ivals.aspx

The numbers clearly show a huge drop for the first 5 months of 2014 vs the first 5 months of 2013. So it's not just Thailand seeing a decline. Tourist numbers should begin to improve in the whole region as the high season starts, as long as fuel prices remain constant and no additional, major geopolitical crises erupt.

no no no
what i'm saying here is that this is not a simple up/down cycle like in the past, this looks like the beginning of the end to me.

just as it happened in the 80s and 90s in europe when millions of tourists started flocking to spain and greece, and then to turkey, cyprus, and then again in croatia, marocco, tunisia, egypt.

now the tourists are skipping thailand and going straight to indonesia, myanmar, malaysia, etc and this also because of the new routes opened up by cheap low cost carriers like AirAsia etc, and in plus now many countries have visa on-arrival.

i can't comment on Singapore, maybe being one of the most expensive cities in the world is starting to backfire on their tourism ? not to mention it's totally unfriendly to smokers and apart shopping there's not much else to do and to see, i mean i like the place and will soon go back but c'mon find me a tourist that stays there more than 4-5 days .. not many apart the business visitors.

phuketrichard wrote:hey suggestion Drifter;
why not head over to thai visa an post with the others that hate thailand
we get it you dont like it and think its over priced , a rip off, shit.

22 million ++ disagree with you each year

The ONLY place that would even remotely be considered a place for whoremongers is Pattaya, yet the thai tourists outnumber the sex tourists by far. take away them and Pattaya would still exist.

Phuket has to be most likely the most expensive place to visit in the high season for tourists,
but they keep coming back year after year an enjoy themselves :-)

i've been proudly banned on Thaivisa and most of the guys there are old farts anyway.

22 millions .. on par with Malaysia, so what ? there are cities in europe doing 20+ millions alone ... i'm not impressed.

i haven't seen crowds of thai tourists in pattaya, maybe they're hiding in the "dark side" ? at least 50% of the people you see around are farangs, chinese, arabs, indians.

however, if the thais start flooding pattaya i'll not give a shit, that place is a gigantic tourist trap as far as i'm concerned, there's just a few place i would save, for anything else it's not my business and it's obvious they're already targeting mainly non-mongers at this point so in my opinion the days of pattaya as the mongers capital of south east asia are numbered, all it takes is for the chinese landlords to raise the rent a bit and hundreds of bars and massage will have to get the fuck out to 3rd road or even in the dark side, even Soi 6 could be bulldozed sooner or later and replaced by hotels and malls.

but then again, who's going to pattaya for the beach, this is still a mistery to me, i can understand mongers, but genuine tourists ? why they dont go to Ko Chang or at least Ban Chang or Rayong ? throwing money out of the window for swimming in a dump, must be thai logic.

phuketrichard wrote: Phuket has to be most likely the most expensive place to visit in the high season for tourists,
but they keep coming back year after year an enjoy themselves :-)

Phuket is living on its past, i can't explain why so many tourists stick with Phuket or Samui, i've a friend now in Samui and he's going there almost every year and he has yet to see Chiang Mai, Pattaya, and even Bangkok !

there must be some perverse social dynamic involved on this, same for some guys i know who only go to Koh Lanta or others who only go in Bali (and of course in the same hotel, same restaurants).

yeah probably they would go back even if another Tsunami flood the whole of phuket, it's simply irrational.

Drifter wrote:

phuketrichard wrote: Phuket has to be most likely the most expensive place to visit in the high season for tourists,
but they keep coming back year after year an enjoy themselves

Phuket is living on its past, i can't explain why so many tourists stick with Phuket or Samui, i've a friend now in Samui and he's going there almost every year and he has yet to see Chiang Mai, Pattaya, and even Bangkok !

there must be some perverse social dynamic involved on this, same for some guys i know who only go to Koh Lanta or others who only go in Bali (and of course in the same hotel, same restaurants).

yeah probably they would go back even if another Tsunami flood the whole of phuket, it's simply irrational.

People go to phuket because it has a variety of things on offer. Raucous nightlife? Check. Nice hotels? Check. Quiet beaches? Check. Outdoor activities? Check. Malls? Check.

You're kind of stuck in a mindset of seeing things in terms of what YOU want, and don't seem to want to think about what most tourists want.