After living here as a new expat retiree for 18 months - I would say that there is a 3-tier pricing system:
- Thais who pay their escorts at a rate which tends to be 50% the price that us expats pay,
- Expats - who want to pay the non tourist price because we live here and we know what the expected expat price should be,
- Tourists - who pay the expat price or an inflated priced due to:
- their naïvete (lack of experience in the local escort market),
- come from Japan, South Korea, or China and will just pay more (why I am not sure - but when I ask my local massage friends they say the the first 2 tip on the high end),
- got money to burn (from saving for a long time) on their 2 week holiday and don't care what it costs.....