Hotels propose national campaign

Hotels would give cash incentives for bookings of four nights or more.

Hotels are considering a nation-wide initiative to draw international tourists to the country.

Thai Hotels Association came up with the plan to target tourism recovery in  seven months, by offering price and value incentives of up to  Bt1,500 for each tourist booking at least four nights in country.

The programme would run from 1 May to 30 November this year.

The proposal was presented at a hotel seminar, last week, on ways to survive the current economic crisis.  Around 100 hoteliers and media attended the seminar.

The campaign has not yet been given a name, but in essence it would be based on nation-wide support from hotels and backing by the government if it was to succeed.

In addition to price incentives, the government would need to guarantee to the travel industry, worldwide, that airports would not be closed again and offer compensation up to US$10,000 per person if airline services were disrupted by mob rule.

“We estimate that in seven months we could draw up to 2 million tourists for these four-night packages.  Visitors would spend Bt4,500 per day according to the TAT estimation, Thailand can secure Bt36,000 million in revenue and hotels would gain Bt12,000 million, on the basis of a daily rate of Bt3,000,” said TAT Southern Chapter president, Methee Tanmanatrakul.

THA honorary advisor, Chanin Donavanik, who joined the panel discussion, said the best solution was to end the political crises, once and for all.

He urged the tourism sector and chambers of commerce to send a strong message to all “politically instigated mobs,” telling them to back off and give the country a chance to recover.