Pattaya: World Famous Destination

Pattaya: from a fishermen village to a world famous destination.

Pattaya

A small fishing village with a peaceful appearance, that totally changed its face during the
1960’s. After the arrival of American soldiers stationed nearby Vietnam War.

Thanks to its proximity to the former US military base,
Pattaya quickly became the privileged holiday district for the soldiers who came to ease themselves between
their missions.
It is actually their arrival that starts the evolution of the city with the system of
their infrastructure, such as bungalows gradually transforming into larger and larger hotels, bars and restaurants. Another aspect as prostitution also rapidly raised, which has largely helped the popularity and development of this small fishing village.

Sex tourism

The sex tourism was already so developed that when the last American
troops left the scene, this was hardly a problem since the city of Pattaya then enjoyed a
massive inflow of visitors from all over the world.

However,

the Thai government has been stepping up its efforts to improve the
image of the city of Pattaya, in particular by trying to develop family tourism through the
creation of numerous amusement parks. development of transport base (highways,
high-speed train lines, etc.), the expansion of the U-Tapao airport is now accepting major airlines
and some direct routes to foreign destinations.

Pattaya

Pattaya also has many advantages as
its closeness to Bangkok, and is located in
the most dynamic region of the kingdom, describes as a new silk road by many economists.

All this together with those frequent rumours of the disappearance of famous walking street
and the increasingly frequent repression of law enforcement towards the various illegal
activities. It looks like Pattaya is going on the right direction.

The transformation of Pattaya

The transformation of Pattaya has indeed
started and that even if the path is long, it is only a matter of time before Pattaya moves
towards a model approaching for example Hua Hin.
Proof of this evolution, in recent years visitors are no longer the same, in 2016 for example,
more than 13.7 million tourists have visited Pattaya. Over 2.5 million
Chinese and more than 600,000 South- Koreans. They rather prefer family activities more than the “hot districts” such as walking street, unlike
our western folks.

What do you think of this evolution, is it a good thing for Pattaya or is it a shot in the foot?