Thailand extends nightlife hours in hot tourist areas, as Hong Kong renews campaign ahead of Lunar New Year

Thailand is extending opening hours of night entertainment in areas with the highest tourist traffic, as it seeks a return to pre-Covid visitor numbers

The Lunar New Year holiday next month will be an early marker of whether Thailand can approach pre-pandemic numbers, depending on middle-class Chinese tourists

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Vivid neon signs glowing at Nana Plaza street, one of Bangkok’s nightlife areas and red light districts. Thailand has extended opening hours to 4am in zoned areas with the highest tourist footfall. Those are in parts of Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket, the three most visited parts of Thailand, as well as Chiang Mai and Koh Samui. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 1:00pm, 21 Jan 2024Updated: 2:17pm, 21 Jan 2024

It’s 2am, and Jae and his fellow South Korean friends have just dropped their bags at their hotel and are already out on the town in Bangkok with a few hours of bar hopping ahead, as Thailand’s nightlife is finally unshackled after years of restrictions.

“Everything is open, it’s cool,” he says, as his friends livestream the giddy whirl of drunken tourists, touts, cannabis stalls, tuk-tuk drivers and night workers on a downtown part of Sukhumvit Road – one of the city’s main tourist drags.

For years the kingdom’s nighttime economy in its most popular tourist areas has been officially governed by a closing time of 2am, with bars, clubs and restaurants selling alcohol complaining of arbitrary police enforcement, or having to pay to remain open for longer.

Tourists walk past a tuk-tuk in a popular tourist area of Khaosan Road in Bangkok. Thailand is eyeing a return to pre-Covid visitor numbers, which in 2019 hit a record 40 million. Photo: EPA-EFE

Packed DJ nights were routinely closed down mid-set, while harried customers seeking an after hours drink had to sink beers in hushed darkness behind closed bars, or at street pop-ups that folded away at remarkable speed at the first flash of lights from a police patrol.

The pandemic brought a merry-go-round of curfews, booze bans and movement restrictions, further crushing the nightlife industry and taking with it the income of the hundreds of thousands of Thais who depend on it in some way.

The new government of Srettha Thavisin wants all that to change by helping tourists to spend more, and later.

It has extended opening hours to 4am in zoned areas with the highest tourist footfall. Those are in parts of Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket, the three most visited parts of Thailand, as well as Chiang Mai and Koh Samui.