Can Booze Bring Back Sunee?

[Dodger]

The Chinese aren't coming back for at least two years and maybe not ever in such large numbers.

There is a God!

[a447]

Considering at the moment because of Covid mainland Chinese are very much discouraged from traveling abroad, this makes no sense.

Well, I wasn't suggesting that the Chinese would be arriving in Pattaya anytime soon, given the pandemic is still raging in China and many other countries.

I was actually looking a bit forward to the time when travel was getting back to normal and tourists from all over the world would be on the move again. Advertising their product would give Sunee the kick-start it will need when that happens.

[Armando]

What will bring back Sunee are people who think and speak in a positive manner about the plight of the surviving bar owners, who refuse to give up hope.

And what I wonder will bring them back? A couple of bars reopening? No way.

Sunee needs to become a destination in itself once again, one where there is a specific reason to visit. What made Sunee a destination were partly the gogos being a lot raunchier than Boyztown and a cluster of bars with fairly regular customers and cute waiters. Roaming though the Plaza and having a drink was actually interesting, as much for the people/boy watching as for the drinking and ogling. I reckon it will take the addition of at least half a dozen venues to open up again, including a couple more gogos, before it has a chance of attracting enough customers to make it a destination again. But that becomes a chicken and egg situation.

[bkkguy]

I reckon it will take the addition of at least half a dozen venues to open up again, including a couple more gogos, before it has a chance of attracting enough customers to make it a destination again. But that becomes a chicken and egg situation.

I would have thought that anyone who had been reading any of the gay, or even straight, Thailand forums over the past few years couldn't have failed to notice that even pre-COVID the sexpats/sex tourists attracted to places like Sunee, and even Walking Street and the Pattaya of old generally, were a dying breed - literally - so I think any prospective Sunee bar owners shouldn't count their chickens before they hatch and certainly shouldn't put all their eggs in a Sunee basket

[Dodger]

And what I wonder will bring them back? A couple of bars reopening? No way.

Sunee needs to become a destination in itself once again, one where there is a specific reason to visit..

Sunee will never return to being the "Destination" you describe, because the Market's simply not there anymore. That points already been made.

If a couple of the bars in Sunee you mentioned happen to include the only Boy Gogo Bars in Pattaya, they'll probably get all the customers they need to stay afloat. They did before the pandemic - and there's no reason to think they won't after. Some of the punters I know (expats and tourists) would drag themselves through the mud for the opportunity to experience a night at the gogo again.

If you doubt that the bars reopening in Sunee will bring the customers back, which you apparently do, just look at what's going on in Jomtien Complex right now,

The gay bars in Pattaya, or that fact Thailand, won't be servicing masses of people like they did in days-gone-by - they'll be serving the local gay expat community and a moderate flow of tourists. One would have to think the bar owners already know this. I don't think anyone's caught in the delusion that any of these places are going to be packed to the brim every night, but for some (me included), that's OK.

[StevieWonders]

The Chinese aren't coming back for at least two years and maybe not ever in such large numbers. The turtle is retreating back into his shell.

From what I read the Chinese government has stopped issuing/renewing passports except (as always) to the favoured few

[gerefan2]

All this chat about Sunee reminds me of the good old days!
Some of my old pics from 2013

[StevieWonders]

All this chat about Sunee reminds me of the good old days!
Some of my old pics from 2013

Heavens you have changed a lot in just a few years

[gerefan2]

While I have my old pics up and running....New Year Eve 2010.

I hope you don’t mind me including your modelling portrait at the end Stevie.

[Armando]

If you doubt that the bars reopening in Sunee will bring the customers back, which you apparently do, just look at what's going on in Jomtien Complex right now

And what makes Jomtien Complex so special that it is actually attracting customers? Because it is a destination with a cluster of bars and lots of boys around. Sunee has been in its death throes for years. Even a handful of bars is not going to ensure its resurrection.

Re Chinese tourists, did anyone ever notice more than an occasional Chinese wandering around Sunee Plaza? I doubt it. Most Chinese gays don't join the ghastly tour groups. They visit as individuals and most are not into gogo bars and beer bars. Their interests are much more into massage spas, gay discos and sometimes gay saunas - and shopping. I know of Chinese gays who travel to places like Singapore and Hong Kong where picking up the latest Rolex or Louis Vuitton bags are just as important as nighttime activities.

That's precisely why an advertising blitz in China as suggested by one poster to attract them to Sunee can never work in my view. The solo/small Chinese gay groups will always gravitate to Bangkok.