Opinion
The Thaiger Opinion Columns
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Sponsored 5 ways retirees in Thailand lose money (and how to stop it)
Retiring in Thailand can be affordable and enjoyable, but many retirees lose money due to common mistakes. High living costs, scams, and unexpected expenses can quickly drain savings. There are five ways that retirees in Thailand can lose money and...
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Opinion: Making Phuket’s roads safe one step at a time
Dr Wiwat Seetamanotch, 57, from Yala, has been living in Phuket since 1987. He worked as director of Thalang Hospital for 17 years, followed by 10 years as deputy director for the Phuket Provincial Health Office. Now retired, Dr Wiwat has been working on road safety campaigns for the past six years, as well as running a clinic in Thalang.…
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Opinion: Ban anything, ban tourists – just be clear
PHUKET: The issue isn’t the beach management plan. It’s the lack of a plan or, at the very least, the lack of communicating the plan clearly and concisely. Phuket can junk up or freshen up its beaches as much as the government wants, but it won’t really matter – there are tourists suitable for each kind of beach. Of course,…
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Opinion: Great balls of fire – sky lanterns a hazard over Phuket
PHUKET: Among the many recent edicts that have been issued by the government to bring some order to Phuket’s beach tourism industry, one that the Gazette hopes can be comprehensively enforced is the ban on the sale of khom loi, or sky lanterns, at public beaches (story here). The Gazette concedes that the sight of khom loi slowly rising after…
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Opinion: Working together to win the war on drugs
Lt Col Somkid Boonrat, from Songkhla province, is chief of the investigation department at the Phuket Provincial Police Station. After graduating from the Royal Thai Police Cadet Academy, he continued on to earn a bachelor’s degree in law from Ramkhamhaeng University and a master’s degree in business administration from Prince of Songkhla University. Lt Col Somkid has been head of…
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Chinese New Year is for all islanders
Dr Kosol Tang-Uthai is the deputy mayor of Phuket City and president of the Thai Peranakan Association, a group dedicated to preserving and promoting the history of Phuket’s unique Chinese culture. Dr Kosol earned his doctorate from Mahidol University, and has been serving as president of the association since 2007. Here, he explains the importance of the Chinese New Year…
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Opinion: High time for high-tide building rule enforcement
PHUKET: There is reason to be cautiously optimistic that the unprecedented involvement of the Administrative Court system in a controversial real-estate development case in Rawai (story here) could mark the emergence of a powerful new tool to ensure that local administrative bodies do a better job approving and overseeing work on future projects on the island, thus bolstering investor confidence.…
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Opinion: “Thainess’ falls short of ecologically sustainable tourism
PHUKET: In the past 20 years, Thailand’s tourism industry has grown in leaps and bounds due to the hard work of the industry’s private-sector and effective campaigns created by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT). One of the TAT’s most successful ever was its “Amazing Thailand” campaign launched in 1998, which aimed to bolster the country’s tourism income after the…
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Opinion: Taking surf safety seriously
PHUKET: Kudos to Phuket Tourist Police volunteer Simon Luttrell for providing lifeguards with multi-language warning cards to help keep foreign tourists out of the surf in dangerous conditions. His generous action, though, raises the question of why local authorities and tourism agencies did not take similar action years ago. The cards (story here) address one of the key reasons why…
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Opinion: Jet-skis: a hazard for everyone
PHUKET: This letter goes out to Lt Col Chatchai Sakdee of the Phuket Marine Police. Dear Col Chatchai: My wife and I have been visiting Thailand on our yacht on and off now for the last four years and generally love it. There is one matter, though, that I would like to draw to your attention: jet-ski hazards to anchored…
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