Shades of greed

In my past life I happened to work for a finance firm and one of Goldman Sachs’ competitors. One thing that was impressed upon us was Goldman’s reputation for being “long-term greedy, not short-term greedy”.

In other words, Goldman Sachs — love them or hate them — was famed for forsaking short-term, easy profits in pursuit of longer-term, more substantial profits.

I humbly propose those in charge of setting admission prices for public parks — a topic discussed in the Bangkok Post editorial on Monday — might take a page from this playbook.

While the gatekeepers can, via doublepricing, squeeze out a few extra baht in the short term, in the long term this approach runs counter to all of the other stated goals of the Tourism Authority of Thailand: attracting good, repeat, respectful tourists to the kingdom.

Simply put, it’s not beneficial for folks to go home feeling like they have been shortchanged. Those guests are less likely to encourage their friends and family to visit the kingdom — let alone revisit the country themselves.

The way to ensure that someone wants to do business with you long term — whether you are a country, a finance firm, or a noodle vendor — is for your customers to take away from each and every interaction the sense that they were welcomed, that they received good value for money, and that they were made in no way to feel inferior to guests of any other nationality or race.

MAXWELL BROCK