macaroni21

Vinapu hit the nail on the head. Generally speaking, people come to this site for information about the sex-related aspects of travelling (whether Thailand, Brazil, Barcelona, or wherever). More specifically, about the opportunities to buy sex 😛. This is the "unique selling proposition", as they say in business, of this forum. Inevitably, a forum such as this attracts a tiny minority of visitors who see an opportunity to get all moralistic (or racist). It's like walking into a cutting-edge fine-dining restaurant and scolding diners for spending top dollar for food when there are people elsewhere living from hand to mouth. Like all instances when people do that, it is subconsciously so that they feel superior to others. (Or because they cannot afford fine-dining 😉). They seldom realise how moralism, racism and holier-than-thouism look to others (tip: not a pretty picture). Therefore, posters on this forum are not equal. I think many of us instinctively categorise posters into two kinds: those who make trip reports and have useful information to share, and those who don't make trip reports and have nothing but their egos on display. Phew, now that I've said it, I feel better too!

Oh no, you've got me wrong. I think their business model is fine, and I totally understand the obviously regular stream of clients they get (mostly local, I would think). As a group, the Saphan Khwai cluster is doing better than the massage/brothels of other districts. All business models comes with risks. The important thing to do is to identify them and take mitigative action. What I am saying it that individually, no shop has optimised its marketing communications to get ahead over its competitors in the same area, or improved its facilities enough to gain an edge. Yeah, I'm a perfectionist when it comes to getting bsuiness right. That said, marcomms-wise, the massage businesses are way ahead of the gogo bars who have either absent social media presence or poorly-aimed ones highlghting ladyboys dressed in excessive finery. Pricing-wise, the massage parlours/brothels are also a lot smarter. Facilities-wise, look at some of the gogo bars' toilets - how do they even compare with the massage parlour facilities?

Then you may want to give 365River a try. New building, ensuite showers. Very clean as well. Quiet neighbourhood; easy access from Bang Pho MRT station (in fact right under the station platform). Note of caution: my one and only experience was that the service sucked, though it's the luck of the draw with the boys.

You mean this guy? He looks Turkish to me. I'd take him over the African guy anytime. His tip expectations are at the lower end of the Apollo range too.

I'm usually happy enough to have 12 to choose from. In any case, as I have said a few times, looks are no predictor of performance. A brothel whose business model is built on offering >25 guys, especially if they are freelancers also listed by other, nearby businesses, takes on a number of risks: - there's a higher chance a boy may not be available when clients pick him, because when a sexworker is only one out of so many on your listing, the chance of being picked is lower, and after a while, he prioritises other means of getting work, and then "not available" leads to customer dissatisfaction; - it's impossible to maintain any kind of service quality; Brothels that list freelancers listed by many other businesses, also need to rethink why a client would choose them over the other businesses. What is their competitive edge when the same boy is available elsewhere? It can't be quality of the boys or their performance, it can't even be the expected tips, since the brothel can hardly control that. It has to be the quality of the premises (and its value proposition) and the ease of access - the elements the businesses can control. Yet, these brothels do not strive to go beyond the basics in terms of premises, and do not communicate why clients should prefer their facility over others. Nor do they even go beyond the most rudimentary instructions as to their location.

The photo is not the clearest, but good enough to make out that Apollo Massage now lists a guy of African ancestry. What is interesting though is that the requested tips are 3,000 baht for 1 hour and 3,500 baht for 1.5 hours, (I presume in-house). Not only are Apollo guys generally asking for higher tips than the Saphan Khwai places, as seen from their Line app sample, Dre is asking for twice higher. (Explanation: He is said to be 1.80m tall, weigh 78 kg and fits a condom of size 56, and he is top) Most boys advertised by Apollo offer three tip levels, e.g. "15/17/25" where the third figure indicates an outcall rate, but not this guy. Maybe no ID, so too risky to enter hotels? You can see my November 2023 review of Apollo here: https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2023/12/10/easy-come/

A report will be nice. Looking forward to it. But what made you think a reservation was necessary? (I'm assuming here that it was a table reservation, not reserving one or more of the models)

If up to me I would probably cap my expenditure in such a bar to 1200 - 1500 baht. That in turn implies a first drink plus 4 private dancers giving me 40 minutes of "hands-on" time.

Oh yeah, I forgot. He was wanting to run a bar in Pattaya. Well, all the more we need answers to my thought experiment (and not just from old daddy) to know how much sales revenue the idea will generate, and therefore whether it will be viable as a business model.

This is the kind of business stupidity that is all too common in Thailand. It is self-defeating. By adopting this stance, it ended up with everybody losing. Bar didn't get drinks orders. Boys didn't get tips. Customer didn't get a good time. The business does not know how to craft a winning formula that leaves everybody happy (One would imagine this is rule #1 of bsuiness marketing, and yet, it's like outer speace to many businesses in Thailand). Often, this failure to craft a better strategy is because (a) owners are unable to think critically and reexamine what they've always been doing, (b) they are completely unaware of the world beyond Thailand and therefore do not learn from seeing other strategies adopted by gay businesses outside Thailand. Here's a thought experiement for @Olddaddy Supposing Nice Boys had booths tucked deeper in the bar, and offered you this option that evening: 1. Take a chosen boy into a booth, and he will private-dance for you for ten minutes (implication: he will wiggle and swing his thing and you can fondle to your heart's content, except no cum) 2. Pay bar 100 baht. Pay boy 200 baht. Would you take up an offer like this -- where, for twice what you were tipping the boys, you get 10 minutes' worth rather than 1 minute's worth; the boy would earn 200 baht instead of 100 baht? The bar too would earn 100 baht without the cost of even pouring a drink compared to whatever the price of a boy drink (200 baht?) in Nice Boys. If you would take up such an offer, how many boys do you think your budget for that evening would allow for? Three boys (30 minutes' entertainment)? Four boys (40 minutes)?

https://baansouy.com/ From their website, the rooms don't look much different from the hotels in Jomtien Complex, which also come with pools, and which are cheaper too, and closer to the action.

Ooops, reading @fedssocr's response, I notice I made a big mistake in my sentence above. It should read: "... usually the ones complaining about mattresses being too hard." (but I guess my mistake was obvious.)

My thoughts too. The price differential between 3-star and the upper tiers is way bigger than the value-added (as far as my needs go). Add in the difficulties with transportation in Thailand, location becomes the main determinant. I can see, though, that others' needs and understanding of "comfort" varies from mine. Even among my own circle of friends (not just among members of this board), there are some who place a lot of value on breakfast - both in terms of quantity as well as in terms of the the type of foods they are used to. On hotel booking sites, for example, I am often amused to see comments (even those concerning 3-star hotels) complaining bitterly about the fact that the breakfast did not have a sufficiently wide range of Viennoiseries ("the hotel should know that we French like our Viennoiseries?"), or did not have a suitable range of vegetarian options ("the hotel should know that we Indians are mostly vegetarian"), or no halal food, or too many Asian stir-fry choices, but without six-layer pancakes drenched in maple syrup ("like what we are used to back home"). I have also seen comments like "there is no nutella", "the coffee is not espresso", "the fruits are all tropical fruits" and "I asked for a poached egg, but they gave me blank stares like they didn't know what a poached egg was." For someone like me who is a yogurt, banana and coffee type of breakfast person, paying for a hotel with huge breakfasts is a total waste of money. I also see comments about comfort of mattresses. Few people understand that is this not something with universal consensus. Americans especially are used to deep soft mattresses. They and Europeans are usually the ones complaining about mattresses being too soft. Asians are used to harder mattresses and I have seen them complain that a 5-star hotel's mattresses were too soft. 3-star hotels in Thailand tend to have foam mattresses which are harder than spring matresses, or spring mattresses that are not as deep. Some of us have gotten used to them, but I suppose other members would see this as an issue. I don't need swimming pools, though having a gym is nice. But then, for short stays, I can dispense with that requirement; in any case there are other gym options. In my experience, there are two things that make the higher-tier hotels negative value rather than no-value-add. 1. There have been times when I sensed the boy that I am taking back is more uncomfortable walking through their lobbies (full of hotel service staff) than through a 3-star hotel lobby (minimal staffing). I hate it when they hate it. 2. There was one time (many years ago) when the boy raided the minibar while I was in the shower. And as we know, the items there are totally overpriced. Ever since then, I have been happier to see an empty fridge than a stocked one. I can go to the 7-11 and stock it up with the things I want, at my kind of prices.

Robert Reich is a well known economist and public policy commentator Here's my next question: Is the same phenomenon happening in the gogo bars of Thailand? - prices going up for no added value; - wealth flowing to the top (think: boys in brown); - underpaid labour.... What about massage parlours?

This is the part one has to watch out for: £4 - £6 sounds very cheap by Western standards, and comes across as more an invitation to book with this hotel than a barrier. It's good that @Pantherz is asking because those of us familiar with Pattaya might be able to advise if there are even any taxis there. I can't answer this question because I have never stayed south of Jomtien Complex, but having visited Pattaya many times, I hardly see taxis in the traditional sense. Grab cars maybe, but then they are unmarked, so I don't have visibility into that. What I can say is that £4 - £6 is equivalent to 175 - 250 baht, which is not the amount I would pay for transport in this town short of having to be rushed to hospital. When I stayed in downtown Pattaya earlier this month, I travelled to Jomtien for 10 baht (albeit in a songtaew), which is one-twentieth of the "cheap" taxi rate mentioned in the above graphic. Context is everything.

There is Jomtien Palm Beach Hotel and Resort, on Jomtien beach road, about 100m from the Dongtan police post. Claims to be a 5-star hotel on Booking.com, but quoting me a price of under 10,000 baht for a 5-night stay. Cheapest room of course but still... Draw your own conclusions. https://www.booking.com/Share-YdP3Ht

Too far not only because of distance, but I suspect also very poor availability of transport, especially if you stay out late. I would suggest you decide which is your main priority: gay scene/fun or tropical beach? This hotel is likely to give you neither. If your top priority is the beach - warm ocean waters, low-rise bungalows in lush verdant settings, Pattaya/Jomtien will disappoint. Try Krabi perhaps or the resorts of Phuket (outside of Patong town). No gay life unless you bring your own. If your top priority is the gay scene, then it won't be very fruitful to look for tropical beach resorts, least of all 4-star or 5-star places. All over the world the gay scene tends to be located in urban settings. Some of us even feel the grittier or grungier, the better.🤪

I read about this years and years ago. Never been there though. Am surprised not only that it's still operating, but as popular as that.

I chanced upon the same DW.com video again*, now publicly available on Youtube. They have put it up under a different URL, with a different title too: Now it is "Sex tourists in Thailand". *Youtube's algorithm for me must be a simple one: SEX, SEX, SEX. 🤣 Note: nothing gay in this DW.com documentary; all about girl sex. As I mentioned earlier in my opening post, the video documentary shifts back and forth between sex tourism and paedophilia with no clear distinction between the two. The tourists interviewed were also pretty bad at pushing back against the moralistic undertone of the interviewer's questions. An underwhelming piece of journalism.

Since when has Somchai been less masculine? Funny that, I have a Thai name too. It's Mek. I gave up on getting them to do the long vowel in Mack.

@floridarob Just a word of thanks for the tip Nok Laundry. Their service was excellent. In fact, when I asked the lady what time I should come back the next day to pick up my clothes (I sent them in at about 11am) she said to come back at 6pm. today. I did, and they were ready. Note: they close at 7pm. I have now included Nok Laundry in my new map of Pattaya 's gay area: https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2023/12/14/map-of-pattayaland-area-december-2023/

Thanks, I know about that food court for airport employees, but considering it was lunch hour, I didn't want to make my way there because in previous lunch hours I have found the place very full. And I didn't make clear (sorry) that in my earlier post, I was referring to the transit areas in Singapore's Changi airport, not the public areas. Their food court is in the transit area, whereas in Suvarnabhumi, all the transit area F&Bs are overpriced. Yes, I'm sure @thaiophilus was referring to that one.

So, did you visit?

Did you get a new passport stamp when visiting Langkawi?

It has fallen very far, and I think the fall is totally deserved. I also notice how the article glosses over the problems it had at the beginning, which required expensive fixes. Some board members may remember. 1. Insufficient toilets in the terminal building. 2. Ground subsidence below the runways. 3. Greenhouse effect from all the glass in the roof. There was a time when each immigration desk had to have a silly little umbrella over it otherwise the poor officer would be roasted in the course of a shift. If I'm not wrong, it was designed by a European (French?) architect - who obviously knew nothing about tropical climates. In any case, looking at the perpetual mess that is Charles de Gaulle airport, I don't know if the French are the best people to hire to design airports. Even now, there are two fundamental flaws in the concept behind the airport. Firstly, Suvarnabhumi was designed as a single terminal to handle a large number of flights. According to this list, it handled 28 million passengers in 2022, a little less than the 32 million handled by Singapore Changi airport, and less than half of Dubai's 66 million. If you've transited through Singapore or Dubai recently, you will have noticed the vast difference. Dubai has three terminals and Singapore has four. You don't have everybody crowding into a single choke point. Those other airports are almost serene in comparison to Suvarnabhumi, despite handling more passengers. Secondly, Suvarnabhumi is still stuck with the notion of glamour travel. Too many shops feature dutyfree luxury goods, a poor fit with the mass travel of today. Food and drink are also overpriced inside the terminal's transit areas. There was one time when I was transiting through Suvarnabhumi and I just needed a ballpoint pen. I had a notebook, I wanted to write something, but it was impossible to find a shop selling the humble ballpoint pen. On another occasion, I was flying off from Bangkok to another destination and saw on the weather report that it was raining heavily in the destination (whose airport was pretty basic, and planes are often remotely parked). I thought I would buy a water-proof jacket/windbreaker, but it took a lot of walking from shop to shop to find one under $100 without a brandname. On a recent transit stop in Singapore, I could buy useful things like a charger, plug adapter and (if I wanted) a powerbank. I was also impressed by signs in a food court (yes, they had a food court) that said something about how their prices were not different from their outlets downtown. Sure, SIngapore prices are not cheap even in downtown, but at least you get the idea that the operators are not trying to scalp you. It only reminded me of how a humble bowl of noodles that I had in the Suvarnabhumi basement (where the airport train arrives) cost 270 baht!