Has Hua Hin shrunk?

[caller]

Well, not physically, but in population numbers.

Pattaya has reported that the population of the city has shrunk by 300,000 since the lockdown.

https://www.pattayamail.com/latestnews/ ... own-334155

I wonder what the figures are for Hua Hin?

[buksida]

I would imagine that any city with revenue derived primarily from tourism will have shrunk in some form this year.

Most of the workers are not native HuaHinians, so with the mass closure of businesses and resultant unemployment, many of them will have packed up and gone home.

[Big Boy]

I mentioned in the Tourist Slump thread yesterday that the Soi where my daughter lives (budget Thai style bungalows) because accommodation is priced for Thais (cheap), it has always been fully occupied. People are leaving Hua Hin like rats deserting a sinking ship. There are currently 13 empty bungalows in her Soi alone.

[caller]

Might have to wait for the Mayor to say something then?

I wonder how much the population of Isaan has grown by?

[STEVE G]

Obviously the majority of them are itinerant workers who will go home to their families if there's no work, and will jump on a bus and come back if there is.

[caller]

Yes, but Patts seems to have quite specific data on numbers.

I know it's gone down, I can tell by the closed shops and car cleaners. Some areas look unaffected - soi88 for example. Others more so.

Just wondering by how many. Decline begets decline without interference. It could be the start of a neverending slippery slope.

[oakdale160]

Covid and worsening exchange rates--Makes you wonder how the ex-pat numbers would have dropped without the constraints of unsellable houses and travel problems.

[buksida]

Was in HH yesterday and it was a ghost town. At many as 60% of the stores between the two sets of lights in the center of town are shuttered with for sale/rent signs on them.

Even the traffic was at 15 year-ago levels, it was actually pleasant!

[brianks]

Can't blame Thai's for freeing to the north. A friend who has recently moved to a village well west of Chaiblum (Sp) is renting a place for 1,000 baht/month and total living expenses are under 15,000 baht/month with water, Electricity and Internet included. Very cheap to live up there.

[buksida]

This could be one upside of what is currently going on - prices in tourist towns become more realistic and aligned with the rest of the country since tourism no longer exists there.

[PeteC]

^ ^ Chaiyaphum Province

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaiyaphum_Province

[wenshidi]

The 2017 population of Hua Hin was listed at 63,000. I am not sure how many of those were expats, but I do remember reading that there were 40,000 expats in HH at one stage.
If anything the expats seem a lot more visible at the moment, perhaps because they have not been able to leave and so the ratio of expat to Thai is much higher than before. Expats tend to be more visible because a lot of them like to walk around rather than use a car or bike.

[buksida]

I think those figures are a little on the high side, that would mean over half the town's population was farang! Stats (reliability questionable) that I recall was the figure being closer to 6,000 permanently resident expats, swelling during the winter months when the snowbirds arrived.

I would imagine the figures for both locals and foreigners have declined over the past year since many Thais are not actually from Hua Hin but have moved there for work (which now doesn't exist).

[caller]

Certainly the snowbirds are still absent. Just counting their missing numbers must have had a detrimental effect on the local economy.

[HHTel]

That figure has at least one too many zeros. Counting UK and US there were only 120,000 in the whole of Thailand pre-pandemic. That would mean a third of them live in Hua Hin..... lol.