Thailand's tourist jewel, Pattaya, fades

Thailand's tourist jewel, Pattaya, fades

By Ken Barrett

PATTAYA, Thailand (UPI): With a beach-bound European tourist ranting in his face, the director of Thailand's Tourism Authority in Pattaya becomes a placater, a keeper of the peace, a listener. It is a role he has played before.

"It's not safe," the tourist said of Pattaya's once pristine beaches. "All that construction work on the seafront -- the sea is full of rubbish. And the speedboats -- we counted 76 of them. Someone is going to die out there."

In truth, it's Pattaya's reputation as a vacation paradise that is in the most immediate danger.

Although it still is regarded by many as one of Thailand's premier beachfront resorts, Pattaya is increasingly a magnet for seaside sleaze, including drug abuse, child prostitution, mysterious deaths and runaway pollution. To top it off, the mayor of Pattaya City was arrested just before Christmas in an alleged real estate scandal.

In a country where tourism represents 5 percent of total GDP, any souring of the industry sparks hand-wringing among merchants and mandarins alike.

Since 1991, when the Gulf War curtailed international travel, Thailand's tourism industry has been in a tailspin, exacerbated in recent years by the economic downturn in Japan and Europe.

But many of Thailand's tourism woes are self-wrought. In 1979, the government made tourism a cornerstone of its economic growth platform, marketing itself as Asia's premier vacation venue.

Throughout the 1980s, tourist arrivals grew by an average 15 percent each year but the government failed to anticipate tourism's downside -- namely pollution and the spread of AIDS. By some estimates, more than 300,000 of Thailand's 55 million people carry the HIV.

These and other problems now plague Thailand generally and Pattaya specifically.

With prices for hotel rooms rising and Thailand's infrastructure sagging, its appeal has diminished in the eyes of many foreigners, including some who are looking to other holiday destinations in Southeast Asia.

Although annual tourist arrivals are back above the 5 million mark and receipts are pushing US$5 billion, Thailand risks losing ground to cheaper destinations in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines if it does not clean up its beaches and brothels.

Crucial year

At Pattaya, resort owners are taking matters into their own hands, despite promises from the Tourism Authority of Thailand to increase its promotion budget for Pattaya and the surrounding region by 70 percent this year.

Some industry experts say 1995 is a crucial year for the Thai tourism industry and for Pattaya, a year in which some analysts predict Thailand will spend more than ever to promote itself through overseas travel organizations and hotels.

The first sign of self-promotion occurred in mid-January at Pattaya, when hotel and restaurant owners put on a lavish carnival for beach-goers. The event raised an estimated d80,000, which will be used to fund a major promotion at the International Tourism Bourse in Berlin in March.

Alois Fassbind, executive director of the Royal Cliff Beach Resort, said the carnival represented the first major community project on the burgeoning east coast of Thailand.

"With this," said Fassbind, who is also known as "Mr. Pattaya," "we should have ample funds to subsidize our promotion in Berlin."

Pattaya also plans to have a substantial presence at other important trade events, including exhibitions in Warsaw and Moscow. Russia and the former Eastern Bloc are now shaping up as promising markets, industry experts say.

Unfortunately for Pattaya, it has no scheduled international flights and for this reason it loses many tourists to the highly successful south Thailand resort of Phuket. Near Pattaya is an airport that handles charter flights, but the majority of foreign visitors come via road from Bangkok.

Unlike Phuket, which is primarily a beachfront resort, Pattaya boasts more sporting, cultural and sightseeing activities, an advantage that may help its ailing reputation.

Visitors "don't want to spend all of their time baking in the sun," said one hotel manager. "They like activity. That's why we got hurt before, (because) we were not ready for the Asian market when the world economy went into recession."

Thailand's Eastern Seaboard is one of the fastest developing economic sectors in the country. Running from the fringes of Bangkok almost to the border with Cambodia, it was earmarked by the government in the early 1980s for industrial and commercial development. Today, activity around new deepwater ports is brisk with new residential areas taking root and a new lifestyle emerging.

Pattaya is right in the center of all this. As tourism spreads along the length of the coast, it should become the heartland of this new region.

Fassbind and others say Pattaya can become a center for culture and major events. He has been part of Pattaya since the early 1970s and has seen it grow from what was little more than a fishing village. He is the first to acknowledge the mistakes that have been made.

"There's a new sense of responsibility and awareness that things can no longer continue as they have," he said. "The moment of truth has arrived, and everyone knows this. The past mistakes have to be corrected or Pattaya has no future as an international resort."