Police closed six illegal hostels owned by foreigners on Koh Pha Ngan Island
Troops and police arrested two foreigners and four Thais on Wednesday for allegedly running six hostels without licence on the tourist destination Koh Pha Ngan in Surat Thani province.
A Dutch man and an Italian man were arrested and charged with operating hotels without licence and carrying out business prohibited to aliens.
The four Thais were charged with acting as nominees for foreign-owned hotel businesses. They were identified as Prathumsri Pitchanankul, Sukanya Diewma, Kongkiart Moolpol, and Matniya Charujit.
The authorities ordered their six hostels – Ecco Beach, The Wonderlust, Cats in Space Hotel, The Nomad House, Phangan Arena, and Slumber Party Hostel and Bar – to be closed.
Action was taken after a group of hotel operators on the island recently staged a protest against hostels illegally opened by foreigners, as they offered cheaper rates and affected the local people’s businesses.
Thank you to The Nation “Six illegal hostels owned by foreigners on Koh Pha Ngan closed” which was brought to us by Google Alerts.
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Whattttt
is echo beach definitely closed? I am supposed to be staying there in 2 weeks!!
yes buddy. you need to find a new hostel.
Or follow their facebook page…
Echo beach is closed until further notice.
Slumber Party is not closed. Just stayed there?
There will be less hotels to stay in as the inspections and closures continue. As an example Phuket has approx. 460 hotels with a licence for daily rentals. All others are legally restricted to only offer minimum 30 day rental. Annual tourist numbers for Phuket are in the region of 8.4 million. Do the maths and you will see that it can’t work.