Thread: Tourist attraction charges 'farang' price to Thai man

Originally Posted by taxexile

tax paid has nothing to do with it and it is a policy based on race and ethnicity,

Nationality, not race or ethnicity.
I thought you just read the article?

the fact that you get in for the local rate is all down to the laziness, ignorance and stupidity of the civil servants who man the gates between long periods of slumber and or absence.

Nah, it's discretionary and up to the individual officer, this doesn't confirm your judgmental assumptions either.

the two-tier pricing isn't based on race.

no of course it isnt. how silly of me to think it was.

By Chawala Kongsaeng

The clarification follows an inquiry to The Phuket News from an expatriate reader asking for help to clarify the long-running confusion on whether legitimately working foreigners are entitled to the Thai rate at national parks.

“I have gone to several national parks and most charge only the Thai admission charge when I show my passport and work permit. However, there have been two around Krabi who refuse. I was wondering what is the actual rule for this for foreigners. Surely there is a standard agreement across all national parks throughout Thailand,” wrote Celi Harper.

To shed some light on the matter, The Phuket News contacted the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation headquarters in Bangkok, as well the offices of various national parks in/near Phuket.

All officers we spoke to were in agreement that there are only two main charging standards – for Thais and non-Thais – and that work, tax or visa status are irrelevant.

Based on our accumulative experience and accounts, flexibility for resident-status foreigners visiting national parks throughout the kingdom has been inconsistent. Some have been allowed to pay the Thai fee simply by speaking Thai to the officer, or showing the park officer their Thai TIN card, work permit, student ID and/or driving license, while others have been outright refused and told they must pay the “foreigner fee”.

Our inquiries have confirmed this.

“Depending on the park, or specific park duty officer, foreigners may be allowed to pay the Thai rate,” explained the Chief of Tourism Promotion office of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, Wanlapha Yuttiwong.

However, she confirmed that this “flexibility” was not based on any laws or regulations, which on the contrary, she insisted, stipulate that foreigners, regardless of their official status in Thailand, are obliged to pay the foreign price.

Foreigners even do not qualify for free entry if under 3 or over 60 years of age.

She noted one exception: students who are part of a qualified academic institution group activity at a national park will collectively be figured into a group discount rate, for which nationality of individual group members is not scrutinised.

Throughout the Kingdom of Thailand, there are 124 National Parks, as listed on the Department of National Parks Website here. That's the English version, listing with the prices for foreigners. The prices for Thai are here.

The Thai rates range from B10-40, while the foreigner rates range from B50-400, or five to 10 times more.

The DPN classifies adults as people aged 15-59, and children 3-14.

“Regardless if you have lived and worked here for many years, you [foreigners] aren’t entitled to the same privileges as Thais. You need to pay the same amount as foreign tourists, but if you are lucky, you might benefit from the flexibility [exercised by some park officers],” she said.

Asked why she thought the fees were so high, Ms Wanlapha remarked “We don’t get enough budget from the government to maintain the parks, and lately the number of foreign visitors to national parks has declined.”

- See more at: Tax-paying foreigners not entitled to local price at National Parks

you really should stop digging, the hole you are in is nearly down to nz already.

So it's based on race yet - discretionary or not - I, a non-Thai, am not charged the 'racist' price... How does that work?

And what about non-ethnic foreigners, farang included, who hold Thai citizenship. If it is indeed based on race then they too would have to pay the non-Thai price. Bet they don't though.

You're trying to hard too make this something it isn't tax. Not sure why that is but as I previously noted the irony of a racist complaining about what he perceives as racism is not lost.

Originally Posted by stroller

Originally Posted by taxexile

tax paid has nothing to do with it and it is a policy based on race and ethnicity,

Nationality, not race or ethnicity.
I thought you just read the article?

the fact that you get in for the local rate is all down to the laziness, ignorance and stupidity of the civil servants who man the gates between long periods of slumber and or absence.

Nah, it's discretionary and up to the individual officer, this doesn't confirm your judgmental assumptions either.

There is no consistent policy through Thailand. Some places will allow foreigners in for the local price, other places won't. Some of it is discretionary, some of it is policy, some of it is how you go about it (if you go with a group of Thais, for example), there may be other reasons. It's up to each individual to accept it or not accept it. Turn around if you don't like it. Pay it if you don't mind or if you do mind but want to go in that day. Or allow someone else to pay it if they want you to go in with them. Up to you.

That's just fucking pervy. How those females put up with that shit, I'll never know.

Originally Posted by Neverna

That's just fucking pervy.

Yeah great innit.

So it might be useless to bring the yellow Tabian Baan, no need to bother ... I will stick to Thai driving license and say (in thai) "I'm not tourist, I live here" and cross the fingers hoping it will work ...

I love the official position : "no matter you pay tax here, you will be considered as a tourist" ... and in a typical thai twist "except if you benefit the flexibility of the park officer" that leaves, as usual, some room to negociation or bribery...

Two-tiered pricing turns tourists off

Bangkok Post Opinion
By Ploenpote Atthakor
8 Oct 2015

This week netizens were hotly debating the two-tiered entry pricing system (one price for Thai nationals, another for foreigners) at national parks.

The debate started after a Phuket man who has farang features complained about the practice on his Facebook page. His post went viral.

The man, who has a Thai name, wanted to buy a Thai-rate price ticket for a visit to the national park in Krabi. But his farang appearance caused the problem. He was charged 200 baht instead of the 20 baht his Thai friends paid.

We have heard this complaint many times before.

In this particular case I am rather surprised at the reaction of netizens, most of whom found the two-tier system satisfactory. The debate then moved to the need for the man to prove that he's a Thai, and his inability to prove it by not producing his ID card (it turns out he's American and, according to the chief of the National Parks Department, should be charged ...

Two-tiered pricing turns tourists off | Bangkok Post: opinion

It’s time the government reviewed its two-tiered pricing policy, writes James Austin Farrell

It is, arguably, taken for granted by most Western visitors, and even expatriates in Thailand, that they will be overcharged at various points of their trip or stay. Thailand has this reputation, and this is why you might see some foreigners arguing over 10 baht (30 cents) for a tuk-tuk journey, or shamefully bargaining at times on fixed-price goods such as eggs. The seasoned tourist fears he’s being made a fool of, while the expat may feel he is already contributing enough to the Thai economy and shouldn’t be taken advantage of. Foreigners are mostly all well aware of the skullduggery that sometimes exists in Thai pricing strategies. Some people accept it, others resent it. It exists, arguably, because when Westerners started visiting Thailand in droves they were seen as rich, and perhaps because of that were deemed eligible for a little extra taxation.

A story this week brought the issue of dual pricing up again after an American-born, Thailand raised (without citizenship) man was charged 200 baht to visit the Emerald Pool in Krabi, while his Thai friends were charged 20 baht. The Bangkok Post followed up with an opinion piece stating that two-tiered pricing is bad for the image of the country, which is probably true, if not now a platitude we hear too frequently.

We often hear about the ‘image of the country’, relating to high profile criminal cases (the Koh Tao murders for instance); when husbands get cheated out of their life’s savings (the BBC’s Jonathan Head recently covered this topic), or when nasty videos go viral such as the latest beat-down of foreigners in Phuket. Thailand’s image, we are told numerous times, has taken another beating itself. A beating shared and Liked thousands and thousands of times. Bad for the image of Thailand seems like a lame apology, a kind of insincere schoolboy ‘sorry’ by the government, the press, and countless Thai apologizers using social media.

Perhaps it’s time, given how Thailand’s image is now viral, that some of these outdated modes of the darker side of hospitality are rigorously scrutinized – by the government, the press, the users of social media. As parents often tell their kids after a wrongdoing, “Well, ‘sorry’ is too late now, isn’t it?” How many investigative stories have we seen in the Thai press about island mafias or a rather delinquent police force? What about corrupt lawyers embedded in schemes to take a foreign man’s life’s savings? British journalist Andrew Drummond investigated such things, and his life, as well as his children’s lives, was ...

Is Thailand?s dual-pricing ?farang tax? outdated? | Asian Correspondent