PBS JULY 18

BUSINESS SUPPLEMENT
Cover Story
PATTAYA CONTINUES ITS RISE
AS A POWERHOUSE
Koh Larn, Pattaya
It is now seven years since Bangkok suffered
arguably the worst flooding it had experienced
for some decades, flooding which proved to be
a boon for the attractiveness of Pattaya as a refuge
destination as well as opening many eyes to
its potential as a genuinely potentially profitable
business environment.
At the time of the 2011 floods there was a
great trek of middle-class Thais decamping to
Pattaya and surrounds to escape the rising waters,
and this, arguably, sparked a realisation that
here was a city with all the services of Bangkok,
located close to the international airport (not that
this would have been a major factor in local Thai
thinking) and drawing substantial sums of government
money to the Eastern Seaboard, simply
because of its propitious position when it comes
to economic growth.
What has been extremely obvious for those
long-term expat Pattaya residents over the past
decade or so has been the arrival of all sorts of
major players in both the hotel and hospitality industries,
but also the rapid expansion of the city
into the eastern side of Sukhumvit Road. Often
referred to as ‘the dark side’, in fact the eastern
flanks of Pattaya is now a vibrant and in many
ways almost an autonomous unit in its own right.
There are international schools, braces of
international-style restaurants (albeit not the
same number and perhaps quality of those on
the western side of the main highway), medical
clinics, dentists, as well as mini-Tesco-Lotus and
Big C
stores and, of course, plenty of 7-11s.
Particularly important, a couple of major supermarkets
are now extant in this ever-growing
area. Indeed, the opening of the Eastiny Supermarket
on Soi Siam Country Club and the opening
of the Tops Supermarket on Soi Khao Noi,
effectively means that many expats need not
venture across Sukhumvit Highway any longer
to fulfil
their most basic shopping needs.
Pattaya has seen the opening of Central Festival
Mall in the wide expanse between Beach
Road and Second Road Soi 9, and it remains
both a tourist attraction and a place for many expats
to shop in a well-catered supermarket
which stocks much of what the average foreigner
may be missing from ‘home’. Holiday Inn, one
of the world’s premier hotel chains, has been
around for some time now while the Amari expanded
its already well-respected product, with
business people taking up as much room ‘space’
as tourists. While the upmarket property developments
of the last decade are now a thing of
the past due to what now appears to be an oversupply,
it is nonetheless almost certain that a
new cycle will start again at some point within the
next few years.
Catering to the upmarket developments local
Thai-run upmarket furniture showrooms such as
Decco and Chic Republic opened on Sukhumvit
Road in south Pattaya. Both were looking at what
they thought was an increasingly sophisticated
market, although it does seem at present that
they may have overestimated the marketplace.
Medical tourism is another area not just confined
to the better quality hospitals of Bangkok. Just
down the road in Sri Racha, as well as in Pattaya,
there is plenty of evidence of foreign visitors taking
advantage of the high level of medical
services available in the resort.
As travel gets easier between both Bangkok
and Pattaya, there is a greater chance of some
key businesses being prepared to relocate their
main operations to Pattaya. The corridor between
the two cities is already notable as a dormitory
region, and the deepwater port at Laem Chabang
also adds to the Pattaya
attraction.
With the military-installed government continuing
to press ahead with plans to expand and
improve the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC)
and with the international airport at Utapao being
geared more and more towards the tourist
numbers looking to vacation in and around the
Pattaya region, the long-term future of the city is
almost assured.
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