Quote Originally Posted by frequent View Post
something on a par with the Eiffel Tower, the Tower of London, the Lincoln Memorial, the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, the Great Wall, the temples in Nara, the Red Fort in Delhi or the Sydney Opera House
I agree, but then even including Nara but excluding the Hermitage where you can easily spend two or more days (but how many do, I wonder?), I cannot believe anyone actually spends a considerable sum of money to travel to Paris, London, Washington, Beijing, Honshu, Delhi or Sydney just to look at, wander along, take a lift up a single monument. Tourists may primarily go to Tokyo and Shanghai to experience Disneyland for a day, but what makes these and other major world cities must-see destinations is they contain a combination of monuments, real daytime attractions that require a degree of participation, architecture, culture in its many varieties (including food) - and so on. Given that Pattaya already attracts millions of tourists each year and a very large number are not sex-tourists, it must have something already going for it. But if the city's going to change its image over the longer term, my view is it needs a number of changes including a mega-type theme park that will appeal to most of its future visitors - and do something about the beach!