Pattaya readjusts tourism goals for high season

Pattaya officials are trying to set more modest goals for the upcoming tourism season as an unnamed official says it is unlikely Pattaya will get a million tourists a month during the high season. Well, yeah!

Tourism Business Association figure Bunawan Patanasin says if 200,000 visitors travel to Pattaya each month of the high season it will be considered a significant positive improvement for the seaside party town. Pattaya used to see as many as 800,000 to a million visitors a month. Prior to the pandemic, circa 2018-2019, Bunawan says tourism brought in 276 billion baht to the local economy annually. By 2020, that number dropped to 60 billion.

Bunawan hopes Pattaya will be open to foreigners ASAP, eyeing an opening sometime in the middle of next month to provide Pattaya with a chance to see how their protocols will do before the high season starts. Bunawan asks the government for transparency to help tourism businesses and to increase the confidence of foreign tourists.

Earlier this week, the Thaiger wrote how the exact date Pattaya will reopen is still ambiguous as the date depends on which official you ask.

SOURCE: ASEAN Now