Although I have not been here a tremendous amount of time, I hear it regularly said by people that pop-in and pop-out of this country regularly rather than live here full time: Thailand has become an expensive place to travel to. For someone that is first arriving here, this might be unnoticeable and perhaps this is part of the design but for those of us that have been paying attention or have been coming here for a long time, it is definitely the case - this place is no longer a cheap vacation / holiday destination.
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Keep in mind that this is all relative and needs to be taken with a bit of comparative logic in mind. If you were to travel to almost anywhere else in the world that has this level of natural beauty, especially if it is my home country of USA, the cost would be dramatically higher than it is here, that much is a given. However, this place, when I first got here, was still kind of considered a budget destination and even a backpacking Mecca of sorts. It is not that anymore. Gone are the days of backpackers existing in this country for $10 to $20 a day, that simply isn't possible anymore and there are many reasons why that is the case.
The government began a conversion project around 10 years ago (according to many sources who I personally know) where they began aiming for more of what they described as "quality tourists" rather than "quantity tourists." They were aiming to get the families and higher-end travelers that are going to show up, spend a couple thousand dollars in a week or 10 days and then get out. Prior to that Thailand was a mixture of both high-end ultra-luxury tourists and also a huge amount of backpackers who would basically live here for very long periods of time. Back then going on van visa runs that would take all day just to get another 30-day visa stamp were very common and anyone could just sign up for them, now these services barely exist at all because almost all of the kind of travelers that were going on these runs, they are no longer eligible for endless visa stamps. I have heard shock stories about people making their way to Laos or Cambodia by road, going across the border, and then being told by Thai Immigration that they will not be allowed back into the country. While I am certain that was a very difficult situation for the people involved, it happened enough times that the people offering these services stopped doing so. I don't even know if this sort of operation exists at all anymore. If it does, it certainly isn't in great numbers.
The country tends to try to blame the increase in prices on inflation and Covid, but that is only a half-truth. Sure, there was some level of attempting to regain the lost revenue after the country was closed for over a year during Covid, but the market quickly stabilized due to competition over price. Inflation is a very real thing but I think that is used as a convenient excuse rather than it being the reality of the situation.
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This graph does in fact indicate a sharp increase in inflation right around 2022 but then it stabilizes and well, that hasn't been the case from my point of view. Prices have continued to rise for a wide variety of tourism oriented things ever since then and inflation is just used as something to point the finger at. I recall years ago when the government stopped subsidizing gasoline for certain industries for a while and this was used as reasoning for why basically everything jumped in prices, particularly for taxis. However, the government later re-subsidized these programs and when that happened, the prices stayed elevated despite the fact that the main reason used for price increases had been eliminated. People just wanted to make more money and I suppose you can't fault them for that.
Another thing that has many people stating that Thailand is no longer affordable is the fact that the government and Tourism Authority have been continually increasing the prices of National Park entrance fees but only for foreigners. These prices tend to seriously irritate people that are visiting here because even though they do at least try to conceal the price gouge based on nationality, you don't have to be terribly smart to figure it out.
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Almost anything gets classified as a national park as well. Here in Chiang Mai I was recently at this man made lake that I have been going to for years and all of a sudden a gate has been placed at the entrance that wasn't there ever before and they are charging people 100 Baht to get in if they are not Thai. It isn't even a very nice lake and it certainly isn't maintained to any sort of national park level. It is just a bunch of overwater gazebos where people can go and have lunch and there is garbage everywhere including in the lake. That didn't stop them from declaring it a national park though. There was never very many foreigners at this location when I would go but now I would imagine that this number has dropped to nearly nothing. I know I wont go there anymore.
The government always increases taxes on things like sin taxes (alcohol and tobacco) and according to my friend who owns a restaurant/bar, these costs vary depending on what kind of establishment you have. There are also newly introduced "environmental fees" that are applied to certain businesses that are near some natural wonder and the figurative "line" that indicates where these fees begin get further and further away from the actual attraction every couple of months. I'm trying to not be a jerk here, but after a while when you hear about these sorts of things happening you can't help but feel like the government is just getting increasingly greedy and want their tax revenue.
For people that come here for a month or so every year, they have been a bit shocked at how much the price of accommodation has risen dramatically: It used to be really easy to find a basic room at a monthly rate that boiled down to around $10 per day. These days finding things like that is nigh-on impossible. Mid range and higher accommodation has gone up dramatically in price while budget accommodation that used to be targeting backpackers, for the most part doesn't even exist anymore. There was an entire part of town in Chiang Mai that was the North East corner of the old city inside the moat that once was almost entirely geared towards this demographic.
The people who owned these businesses have had a tough past 6 years or so. The government basically eliminated their bread and butter customer base, but their establishments were not nice enough to attract mid-range clientele. Then there apparently was a motion from the local authorities that all areas near the moat wall was to be hit with a environmental surcharge because of the proximity to the moat and old castle walls. This decree was the final nail in the coffin and most of those businesses ceased to exist.
From an economic standpoint as far as the government is concerned, this elimination of lower-end establishments meant more tax revenue but it was at the expense of small-business owners who have seen their property slowly but surely become increasingly corporate. Where there was previously a bunch of individual guesthouses and cafes competing on low prices and service, we now have a few huge hotel and international chain restaurants.
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I knew things were bad when a long-standing popular night spot called "John's Bar" was forced to shut its doors. This was a prominent business that had been along the moat for ages but they could no longer compete with the deep pockets of the international chains and they were forced to shut down. The elimination of something like that was a big blow to the community that want opportunities for people other than corporations and they were very popular and rather large. If they weren't able to weather the economic storm, the even smaller businesses don't stand a chance.
While it doesn't make me happy to see this city and this country basically become Florida, that is the way that it is now. Thailand is no longer the cheap attraction that it once was and I don't see it ever returning to that state. In the meantime the government is achieving their goal of changing the demographics of their tourism and from the people I have talked to, none of the neighboring countries have taken up the slack to get these people either. Perhaps this part of the world just grew tired of being known as a "cheap place to vacation."
It's likely considered progress by the government but in the meantime they crushed the dreams of regular people who put their life into owning their own business only to have these hopes completely dashed by corporatism. It's tragic, but that is simply the way of the world I guess.