Thai hotel website to take on foreign operators
The Thai Hotels Association (THA) will launch a website to sell its members' rooms nationwide, taking on international sites, especially Agoda.com, which has entered the Kingdom to take advantage of room margins from 20-50 per cent.
Other foreign sites are Expedia.co.th and TripAdvisor.com. All of them offer a Thai version. Thailand is one of the major destinations in the region because there are a lot of rooms available, paving the way for the sites to do business.
In comparison, Singapore’s leading hoteliers have no need to sell their rooms via broker websites as they are often fully booked. Also, the margins of Thai hotel rooms are still low, according to Supawan Tanomkieatipume, THA’s chairwoman for public relations.
Its website, Thaihotels.org, will be introduced officially in Thai and English in November. It will serve as a platform for 700 hotel members nationwide to sell their rooms. The association hopes to slash the price gap to not more than Bt200 between Agoda.com and its own website. However, members are required to pay a website fee of 15 per cent.
At present, local hoteliers are faced with declining margins from online sales via broker. The margin of some hoteliers has been slashed to 50 per cent to put their hotel profile on the front page.
In addition, salespeople of broker websites have asked for the lowest price to sell via their channels. Most important, the money they collect is transferred back to their parent companies.
Supawan is hopeful that 80 per cent of hoteliers will use the THA website, and sales of 1,000 room nights per month are expected.
