"In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king"
“Majority of Thais Don’t Want Foreigners Back”....if they did a poll in Pattaya they might get a very different answer.
As a farang living in Pattaya I am definitely not keen for Thailand to allow foreigners back, particularly not people travelling from the UK or the USA. Thailand has done an excellent job of containing the virus and frankly I dread the time when Thailand does open its borders again. Ideally it would be best to wait until the vaccine is fully available but I doubt that that is possible.
It's not just the residents of Pattaya and other tourist centres who rely on the tourist trade. Tourist money flows to Isaan and other of the less wealthy areas, not just from the sex-trade but from the shops and businesses that have developed around it.
Only on one occasion do I recall meeting a guy who was, more or less, a local. He lived in Chonburi....and even then I worked-out that his mother was in the sex-trade.
Up2U (July 15th, 2020)
I 'm envious!
Of course the "plentiful" boys are there because of tourists, not expats of whom there aren't enough to support the scene. Or the malls or restaurants. Expats are living happily in Thailand due to the money spent over the decades by tourists... expats are just as much a product of tourism as those who live off the sex-trade, directly or indirectly. It's likely they first experienced Thailand as one of us.
Nevertheless, I expect I'd feel the same if I were there now.