THAILAND TRAVEL NEWS: Thailand travel and tourism industry leaders have struck out at domestic developers and international travel agents, with one major Asian travel wholesaler labeling travel agents as “vultures”.

The stinging comments came at a seminar themed Rates Versus Value: Are We Going Off the Deep End?, held by the Thai chapter of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) in Bangkok.

Part of the seminar discussed the predatory behavior of overseas operators who commonly sought to strong-arm a 50 percent decrease in hotel rates, proceeding to pocket 20 percent of the margin and passing only 30 percent to the consumer.

Luzi Matzig, group CEO of Bangkok-based Asian Trails, blasted international travel agents saying, “as soon as crisis hits, some overseas tour operators behave like vultures trying to make money out of it”.

Joining in the slagging of overseas travel agents was Jim Reed, CEO of Destination Asia , also Bangkok-based, who claimed travel agents doing this did not deserve the tag “friends of Thailand”.

Mr Reed said that in the pursuit of profit too many Thailand hotels drop rates in a crisis simply because their competitors are doing it. He described this as an “unthinking knee-jerk reaction” and “a mistake that costs millions of dollars”.

While foreign-owned Bangkok-based travel wholesalers focused their displeasure at foreign travel agents, Chanin Donavanik, CEO of Dusit Thani International, preferred to level the criticism closer to home, saying the problem partly lay with disillusioned business families, who incorrectly saw hotel development in Thailand as prestigious.

A further 7,000 hotel rooms (not including serviced apartments) are to be added to Bangkok in 2011, and Mr. Chanin said the oversupply/under yield problem was the result of “investors that don’t know what they are doing”.

While most agreed that the business plans for hotels today are less lucrative than plans created 10 or 20 years ago when there was much less supply, the depressed revenue per available room (RevPAR) isn’t preventing some groups from expanding.

Wayne Buckingham, VP and area managing director (Thailand) for Starwood, said the group is looking to open six hotels in Thailand over the next six months, though he pointed to Chiang Mai as one part of the country in desperate need of assistance, saying occupancies there are less than ten percent.

By John Le Fevre

Thailand Travel News for August 13, 2010