Plans to Demolish Walking Street Pattaya – Good or Bad for Pattaya Condo Market?

Anyone who has ever visited Pattaya knows about Walking Street.

It’s a kind of institution in the city and one of the reasons so many see Pattaya as a party capital of the world. There have been concerns for over 20 years that the businesses on the beachside of Walking Street have been encroaching on public land. In recent news, plans are once in again in place to demolish the buildings on the beach side of ‘The Street’, but have been met with distant from some local business persons who believe it will negatively impact tourism in Pattaya or even the Pattaya condo market.

In a recent meeting with city officials and local businesspersons, a 20-year old plan to demolish the buildings on Walking Street and replace it with a coastal parkland have been revived and discussed. There were four possible options detailed at the meeting, 3 of which would result in the above-mentioned demolition that was met with unease.

Many of the local business people in attendance thought those three options were a bad idea and would greatly impact tourism in the city. This would be true in the short-term, but would it be such a bad thing in the longer term? The city has been trying to improve its reputation over the past few years and move towards making Pattaya a more family-style holiday destination, but is this idea a step too far! In the eyes of lots of people who live in or visit the city, it would be a bad idea, but it could work both ways with the Pattaya condo for sale market.

Many people say that it would be the final nail in the coffin for Pattaya’s reputation as a nightlife epicentre and would see the city attract fewer tourists who come to enjoy Pattaya’s more hedonistic pleasures. But would it help Pattaya move into a new age of tourism? Who knows!

Mayors, city council members, business leaders and tourism officials were all in attendance for the meeting, help on the 6^th October, to discuss the plans. The 4^th option, which was more acceptable to local business people than the preceding 3, but still not warmly welcomed, was removing buildings/structures extending 40 meters from Walking Street onto public land.

Some people would say that Walking Street and Soi 6 are both the last bastions of what has made Pattaya so popular over the past few decades, and destroying Walking Street could signal the end of Pattaya tourism as we know it. That is a matter of opinion of course, and with so many families now visiting the city, it could change the face of the city forever.

I am not here to cast any opinion on the plans because I need to keep impartial, and in honesty, I am a family man who never visits Walking Street, but we would love to hear what you think about it.

Is this a bad move for Pattaya tourism in general and will it usher in the collapse of the region’s tourism industry as we know it?

Or, do you believe that the buildings on the waterfront side of Walking Street should be demolished because some of them currently encroach on public land and it could help the city’s tourism industry evolve in a more wholesome way in the long-term?

The Pattaya Condo for sale market would probably see a slight downturn in the short term is the plans are implemented, but over the course of time will level itself out, but there are many factors to consider with such a radical plan.

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