Amazing Thailand is the slogan, Pattaya is one of the main travel and tourism destinations in the Kingdom of Thailand. Pattaya is known for its beaches, nightlife and watersports. Pattaya is usually packed with visitors all year around. Not now! COVID-19 caught up with the city and turned it into a ghost town.
Tourism 2020 and beyond. We live in unprecedented times and never has the world had to react so drastically to safeguard its’ communities, and as we watch the hourly developments, optimism appears to be in short supply with a majority of the world’s population shutdown.
The situation in Thailand and particularly in Pattaya started at a very early stage. Chinese New Year was about to be celebrated with thousands of Chinese guests in Pattaya. No-one could believe that in a matter of a few days, all would be gone. There was some optimism as business continued virtually as normal for many, without the masses of tourist buses congesting Pattaya’s streets. How could we believe that a few weeks later tourism is virtually shut-down with hotels closed, airlines grounded, bars and nightclubs dark and the last remaining tourists desperately trying to leave.
We are now in the ‘eye of the storm’, there is an uncanny quiet in all tourist regions as the majority of Thais and the foreigners living here finally comprehend the severity of the situation. Everyone is being asked to stay at home. Many have obeyed but some did not, so we still live with a curfew.
Beleaguered by bad news from around the world it is a challenge to think of the future but maybe it is an opportunity to reflect, especially in Pattaya. From a sleeping fishing village, in the ’50s, Pattaya and it’s’ surrounding areas developed swiftly into a major tourism destination with tourism arrival figures on 15 million in 2018 and the envy of many countries. This rapid expansion drove a virtual forest fire of infrastructure development with many seeing opportunities to cash in on the ever-increasing number of visitors. With tolerant regulation, competition became rife and, in some sectors supply soon exceeded demand. The Tourism Authority of Thailand was extremely active in many developing markets and was able to secure extensive collaboration with local tour operators and charter airlines creating waves of mass tourists. I witnessed this personally on the fast-developing Russian market with Thai suppliers extremely active just as the market was opening in the early ’90s. Unfortunately, mass tourism bubbles have a tendency to burst, this happened to the Russian market in 2014 and has now also happened to the Chinese market and in effect to world markets now.