Image: Mr Grittapohn Chattreesagoon
5 October 2015
KRABI: A Thai man has revealed his disappointment at being told he would have to pay ten times the regular ticket price in order to visit a popular tourist attraction in Krabi – all because he looks like a westerner.
On Saturday, Mr Grittapohn Chattreesagoon, who is from Phuket, tried to enter the Emerald Pool in Krabi when a park attendant told him he would have to pay an entrance fee of 200 Baht, rather than 20 Baht, as advertised for Thai nationals.
However, despite Mr Grittapohn, who has a Thai ID card, explaining to the attendant he was in fact Thai the attendant insisted on him paying the 200 Baht.
According to Sanook.com, Mr Grittapohn, who has a combined total of more than 5,000 friends and followers on Facebook, took to the social network to express his anger at the situation and the unfairness of the dual pricing policy.
Within hours, Mr Grittapohn’s post had gone viral and at the time of writing, has now been ‘liked’ by more than 34,000 people and shared over 3,500 times.
Similar controversial dual pricing policies are in place at many popular tourist attractions throughout Thailand and often result in foreign visitors being forced to pay considerably more than their Thai counterparts.
In 2012, Thailand based travel blogger Richard Barrow made national headlines after he was blocked from posting on the Facebook page of the Asiatique shopping complex after he questioned why foreigners were charged 250 Baht to go on its ferris wheel, when Thai nationals only had to pay 200 Baht.
Earlier this year, the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, announced that entrance fees for foreign visitors to many of Thailand’s national parks would increase further from February 1st 2015.
Foreign visitors wishing to visit the national parks at Similan and Ko Surin are forced to pay the highest entrance fee of 500 Baht, whereas Thai visitors need only pay 100 Baht.
First time foreign visitors to attractions which operate a dual pricing policy often do not realise that such policy is in place as the operators of many attractions often only provide information of entrance fees in Thai script.
Source: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/860677-thai-man-massively-overcharged-at-national-park-because-he-looks-like-a-farang
NOTE: Thaivisa.com issued a follow-up article the following day – Read here
