Reviving Chaotic Street Life Seen as Thailand’s Biggest Reopening Challenge After Merchant Exodus
Photo Credit: Closed for good, a soi in Phi Phi Island. Source: Laurent Kuenzle, Asian Trails Group
Skift Take
Reopening isn't just about giving tourists an entry pass, but having the ability to offer them the product they imagine it to be. In Thailand, both are a problem — unless the government acts.
Abandoned street life in Thailand's popular destinations sends a searing shock on how the pandemic has uprooted one of the kingdom's most unique attractions.
Once there wasn't an inch left on the soi's (local for side streets) to put yet another restaurant, bar or stall selling everything from beach hats and underwear to luggage and local art — a colorful snapshot of how much Thai people love to sell something. The footpath may be imperfect, the layout a mayhem, there could be a tattoo designer next to a seafood vendor — only in Thailand will you find this, and that's why street life is a huge part of the country's sense of place.
Today, the only sense you'll get is that a catastrophe has happened and a whole community of small tourist providers have had to flee, or simply perish.
For local industry leaders such as Christophe Vielle, CEO of GCP Hospitality Thailand, a hotel investment and management company that owns among others a Pullman in Bangkok and in Pattaya, that's
