This is something that really irritates me about being here and something that is quite a common gripe among the expat community. I don't know if the true tourist visitors complain about this but it is something that has been going on for a while. National Parks need to be able to fund themselves, this much is known around the world but when you start charging foreigners 5-20 times the prices that locals are charged I believe there is a fine line between what is fair, and outright taking advantage of people.
In the past they have been a bit covert about it and would use the Thai script for numbers on the signs in an attempt to conceal that foreigners are being charged dramatically more. Most foreigners cannot read Thai and would be none the wiser unless they really dug into it. If you look closely though you don't need to be able to read Thai numbers to be able to realize that the top listings have only 2 digits and the bottom ones have 3.
Thailand has been doing a pretty fantastic job in rejuvenating tourism and I've been cynical enough to realize that at some point, if they were successful in talking tourists into returning, that the officials are going to find a way to fleece the foreigners because that is just something that always ends up happening.
They aren't even being covert about the dual-pricing system these days though as not only did they re-instate the National Park fees that were actually free for a while, but they brought back the entrance fees with a massive 100% increase in fees, but only for foreigners. This was done quietly, but in an official capacity during an announcement by the Department of National Parks presumably with the blessing of the federal government.
There's no denying that these places are beautiful and they definitely should be protected. Especially for some of the larger national parks this land involves large areas that if they were not deemed National Parks they would almost certainly be scooped up by rich people or investors and then the access would be restricted to only the wealthy. This is something that happens around the world and Thailand is not unique in the area. I do think that Thailand is a little more "in your face" about how they are overcharging you because of your nationality than thy are in other countries that I have been to.
In the past I have heard some people attempt to protect these decisions by saying that Thai people pay taxes that fund the parks and foreign visitors do not. This isn't entirely true but I can see the logic in that. However, is this amount of taxes equal or even close to justifying people paying many times the amount that a local person does? I'd love to see someone break that down mathematically, because I don't think they would be able to do it. Also, there is the fact that of the parks that I actually have been to, they tend to be poorly maintained with garbage all over the place. This suggests to me that the fees that are being paid aren't even being used towards the actual park, but is rather funding something that a politician or someone high up in the government can park somewhere, like a Mercedes.
I don't really go to National Parks so it doesn't really affect my own life but there might come a time that I do want to go and the knowledge of the dual-pricing scheme is going to get under my skin. It just doesn't feel very good to go into a place knowing that before you even set foot inside you are being taken advantage of. I say this as someone that actually DOES pay taxes via my job, likely significantly more taxes than the average Thai person pays - yet I am not entitled to local prices even if I show my tax certificate, work permit, and work-visa. This kind of shows that the official government policy doesn't take taxation into account, it is merely a charge based on what your skin looks like.
I hope this isn't a sign of Thailand returning to their devious ways as far as fleecing tourists is concerned. This was a really big problem for the image the world had of this country many years ago pre-Covid and when Thailand started to "play nice" in order to lure tourists back to the Kingdom, I kind of had my cynical suspicions that it was only going to be a matter of time before they returned to their old ways.