Pattaya Hotel Fires Staffer for Kicking Guest (Video)

A screenshot of the video posted on Saturday that shows a hotel staff member kicking a woman in Pattaya.

PATTAYA — The manager of a hotel in the resort town of Pattaya said he has fired a staff member who assaulted a female hotel guest after video of the encounter went viral online.

The video, which surfaced online Saturday, showed a Thai woman arguing with two male staff members in front of The Sun Exclusive Hotel when one of the men kicks her and challenges her to go to the police. 

In the video, the men are heard telling the woman she needs to leave her national ID card at the lobby to see a foreigner staying at the hotel. The woman offers to deposit a driving license instead, which the staff refuses, and the heated argument eventually escalates into the assault.

Advertisement

Suwit Wanichprapao, manager of the hotel, said at a news conference today the man who kicked at the woman has been fired.

Speaking to the victim, who asked not to be identified by her real name, Suwit said the hotel does accept driver’s licences and other photo IDs in place of national ID cards.

“However, because there was miscommunication, and because of the lack of knowledge on the staff member’s part and because of his stress, this incident happened,” Suwit said. “I’d like to apologize to her, and to society, on behalf of a tourism business operator.”

He also promised to improve staff training at the hotel to prevent similar incidents in the future.

The woman told reporters she arrived to visit her boyfriend, a Bangladeshi national, but the staff treated her with hostility.

“It saddened me. I was a customer. Why did they welcome me like that?” she said, adding that she would not take any legal action against the hotel or staff because Suwit had apologized.

“But I’d like to tell them: Don’t let this thing happen to any other woman,” she told reporters.

Pattaya, a coastal resort town in the eastern Gulf of Thailand, is well known for its seedy nightlife scenes and sex industry. Many hotels admit sex workers who accompany their customers to their rooms, provided that they deposit ID cards at the reception.

The prevalence of prostitution results in some Thai women with foreign partners being falsely identified as sex workers.

Advertisement

 

To reach us about this article or another matter, please contact us by e-mail at: [email protected].

Follow Khaosod English on and Twitter for news, politics and more from Thailand.

\