Answering the general inquiry in this post (“What do you think? Are these sources reputable enough to state this claim as a fact?”) is rather easy. Because this post is curious about the credibility of one particular statement regarding an increase in tourism due to the Moo Deng phenomenon (“an ‘80% increase in tourist numbers’”), it doesn’t take long to figure out whether this statement is true. One of the linked sources, created by Pattaya Mail, cites this tourism statistic as being stated by Boonanan Pattanasin, the President of the Pattaya Business and Tourism Association. Upon Googling Boonanan Pattansin, various **articles from different news sources appear and make his standing in Pattaya’s tourism affairs seem legitimate. With this information in mind, to answer this post’s aforementioned central inquiry: yes, these sources are reputable enough to state this claim as a fact because it’s not a claim solely made by these sources, but rather by a notable member of the Pattaya Business and Tourism Association. However, it should be noted that the source created by Thai.News doesn’t cite Boonanan as the source of the 80% increase in tourism statistic. Even so, the source of this claim can be linked to Boonanan with a quick Google search. As such, the reputability of the linked sources doesn’t necessarily need to be considered because this post questions the reliability of a particular statistic. In other words, since this post is only asking about the credibility of a specific tourism statistic, the credibility of the linked sources doesn’t hold much merit as long as the statistic is true.
**https://www.pattayamail.com/latestnews/news/boonanan-pattanasin-re-elected-pattaya-business-tourism-association-president-426982; https://thepattayanews.com/2023/08/27/chinese-tourist-shortfall-takes-toll-on-pattayas-tourism-sector/
